5, 4, 3, 2, FUN! 02/28 - 03/04 Disneyland Trip Report *Completed 4/18*

[mindylee847]

Hello and Welcome to my Disneyland trip report!



For those of you who missed my Pre-Trip Report, you can find that here. It's kind of a mess so I'll go through some of the basics here of the who, what, where, etc!

My husband and I were planning a trip to Disney World for the month of May when I decided to randomly check out some flights for the end of February to California. May was too far away and with all the promotions of the Diamond Celebration - I just checked Southwest airfares for fun. We found a great deal so I booked the flights right away for Sunday, February 28th to Friday, March 4th. It's very hard to find direct flights from Milwaukee, WI to Los Angeles, CA so I was pumped!

So who are we??

My name is Mindy. I'm 28 years old and work as a tax analyst. Super fun right?? I needed this trip for two reasons. One - I recently graduated with my MBA! Two - I lost my dad to suicide at the end of October 2015 so it's been a really rough few months for my family. There's more about that in the PTR, including a random weekend quick getaway to WDW, and there is more to come ahead about how I was able to have some great memories with something he loved while we were on our trip.

Some of my favorite Disney things include Pirates of the Caribbean, fun flavored lemonades, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, and meeting characters!

My husband is also 28 and it's kind of hard to explain what he does so just know that he works at a desk job too. He's been really stressed out about work lately so this trip was so needed for him.

Some of his favorite things are Jungle Cruise, dole whips, Monster's Inc., and anything Star Wars related.

We booked a standard room at the Disneyland Hotel. We wanted to go big on this trip since we are hoping to start a family now. We had five day park hoppers and a good chunk of money set aside for food and souvenirs - we didn't want to have to say "no" to ourselves this time around! (I will post all souvenir pics at the end.)

So come on and join the fun! There's plenty of awesome up ahead.

​

 

[mindylee847]

Day 1 - Part 1: The Boring Stuff
Day 1 - Part 2: Let the Adventure Begin!

Day 2 - Part 1: Good Morning, Disney!
Day 2 - Part 2: Off to the Racers
Day 2 - Part 3: The Ferris Wheel of DOOOOOOM!
Day 2 - Part 4: Shopping, Meeting, & Greeting
Day 2 - Part 5: Life Could Be A Dream

Day 3 - Part 1: Our First Disneyland Morning
Day 3 - Part 2: Super Meet and Greets!
Day 3 - Part 3: Bippity Boppity!
Day 3 - Part 4: Painting the Night!

Day 4 - Part 1: The Hunt
Day 4 - Part 2: A Great Place to Be-Headed
Day 4 - Part 3: Roaming Pixie Dust
Day 4 - Part 4: Is it too loud or am I just too old?

Day 5 - Part 1: The Shadow Man
Day 5 - Part 2: One Last Magical Night

Day 6: Our Last Morning

Souvenirs

Final Reflections

 

[lwanthony]

Sounds like a perfect trip, Can't wait to read more!!!!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 1 - Part 1: The Boring Stuff

Our flight wasn't until 11:10 AM on Sunday, February 28th. I was able to do the online check in 24 hours in advance and got decent boarding for Southwest. I know we were in the A group - we paid for Early Bird because I don't fly well. We were spots 26 and 27. I did this right after getting my haircut and the lady had convinced me to get the volumizer "boost" they had... it was a mistake as seen in the pictures coming up.

We packed everything up and separated them all into two suitcases on Saturday. I knew we'd probably need a full one to take all of the extras we buy back home in so we made sure to leave room! We finished packing up a few essentials, and the cats thought they'd be coming too.

We made it to Mitchell International with plenty of time to spare, so we went through security to head to French Meadow in our concourse. We split a croissant and vegetarian burrito (which was bigger than my face).

All ready to go!

We actually landed 30 minutes early at LAX. Our luggage came quickly and everything was going really smoothly... until we had to load on to the Super Shuttle. Shuttle after shuttle came by, even the Disney Express while we waited. My TA had recommended not to use the Disney one as it would take longer. Ah well.

After about 30 minutes, the shuttle arrived and we slowly made our way out of the circle of pick ups around baggage claim. We were the first ones to be dropped off!

We were stuck at a stop light staring at this sign for a good ten minutes. I am so glad that I don't normally have to drive in this type of traffic!

We got out and went up to the front desk - apparently I was bad at taking tons of pictures of everything I was going to talk about this trip - but I'm sure you've seen it. We spoke with a great CM while we waited to check in and she asked if we were celebrating anything. I keep forgetting that I graduated in October. With my dad passing, it almost feels like none of that even happened. She told me to DEFINITELY remember that accomplishment and I got this awesome button!

When we got up to the desk, we were told that we were selected to be the E-Ticket Family of the Day! This kind of threw me off since our plan was to make sure to hit both the Mad T Party and Indiana Jones since it was the only night we could do both. They wanted us to come back to the Adventure Tower, Floor 11 to hang out in the E-Ticket Club for snacks, drinks, and the fireworks.

On top of that news, I had really been hoping we would be staying in Adventure Tower since Mike really loves Jungle Cruise. And guess what?? We were put in Adventure Tower! Our room faced Downtown Disney on the fourth floor. We mostly only had a view of the trees but we could see AMC and part of Earl of Sandwich.

Our room was located right near the main elevators which was great most of the time. Although, if you try to go down the elevators close to park opening, you are stuck waiting for quite a few elevator loads to pass as it begins at Floor 11 and works its way down. There are emergency stairs you can take out, but none you can take back up. It wasn't really an issue for us more than once this trip.

The other thing I didn't like was how loud the Diamond Celebration stage was near Earl of Sandwich and ESPN, we could hear it pretty clearly while we were getting ready for bed. I imagine this could be a problem for those with little kids, but it generally stopped by 11 and we were usually already passed out by then.

Otherwise, LOVED the resort. I'll get into a bit more details about the food and what not later, but the location was perfect. I loved being able to walk through Downtown Disney each night instead of worrying about catching a bus. This also worked out just fine too since the parks closed around 8 or 9 each night so we could peruse shops or pick up a snack on the way back.

The bed was comfortable and the pillows were fluffy. The middle of the bed was a bit weird since it didn't really have as much of a groove as the two sides of the bed did. It was nice to have a King size bed since we are used to our Queen at home - and no cats to keep us up here either!

The television promotion they have on the channel when you turn on the TV is severely outdated. You would think a new one would have been created for the Diamond Celebration. I still enjoyed it but I doubt it's helpful for those first timers or those without the helpfulness of the DisBoards.

The room was so spacious, too. I couldn't get over how much room we had. We could easily stretch each night after the long walks around the parks!

Well, that's it for now... coming up - Do we do the E-Ticket Lounge or do we hit both parks?? And do we EVER GET TO EAT AGAIN!!! (Well, that one is probably an obvious yes, but we were starving!)​

 

[mindylee847]

Sounds like a perfect trip, Can't wait to read more!!!!

Thanks for following along! It really was an amazing trip. I can't wait to share it!

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

Great that you are back! I can't wait to read more. Although, I did have a chuckle when I read this:

We wanted to go big on this trip since we are hoping to start a family now.

I know lots of people that have had babies conceived at Disney!

 

[mindylee847]

I know lots of people that have had babies conceived at Disney!

Haha! The people that I've told about starting to try have been hoping that it happened in Disneyland. I guess we'll find out soon if it happened, but I'm kind of hoping it didn't because I really need to kick my coffee habit!

 

[missangelalexis]

Yay I'm so glad you've started your TR! So excited to read all about it

Love the button that you got when you arrived. Definitely an accomplishment to be celebrated!

Woah, family of the day?! That sounds so cool! Can't wait to hear if you guys go to the lounge. And your room looks SO nice!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 1 - Part 2: Let the Adventure Begin

Last I left you off when we were hungry, no, starving! We had breakfast at the airport around 9 AM CT and it was already almost 4 PM PT. That's a whole 9 hours without food other than the few snacks we had on the plane. We both grabbed a fruit bar and headed out to California Adventure to grab some food!

Getting through security was quick and there weren't any lines going into the park at this time. They snapped our picture for identification purposes and we were on our way!

Our food stop was in Hollywood Land. We made sure not to really stray from this area the entire night as I didn't want to spoil Cars Land for us a day early since we didn't have the time to fully experience it yet.

One would think that you wouldn't be able to find a vegetarian option here at Award Wieners, but it was one of the things I was most wanting to try!

Mike and I both ordered the Vegetarian Portobello-Mushroom Philly and got some bottles of water. We had the option of either chips or apples as the side. Had they had fries available, we would have chosen that option.

I let it cool off for a bit since there was a good five minute wait for our food so I assumed the veggies would be piping hot. Even after waiting a bit, I burned my mouth so take caution!! I love vegetables so I really enjoyed this, but the cheese really pulled this together. My husband wasn't too impressed with it. His had actually fallen apart because of how much of the sauce he had. I didn't get much sauce on mine so I was a bit disappointed after realizing that.

The seating area for Award Wieners was pretty plain. Metal like walls and not many props or anything around the area. I know that California Adventure is supposed to be like a "behind the scenes" type of park so I suppose this fit in well that way.

After eating, we needed a pick me up and headed to Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical Cafe. We had picked up $100 in Starbucks gift cards from Target the day before (saved 5% with our Red Card) and loaded them on the Starbucks app. We didn't get anything fancy. We ordered two tall coffees, but she gave us grandes instead. We must have looked as tired as we felt.

They had these adorable newspapers sitting in the cafe by the window so I had to take a photo. I'm assuming this is from the Trolley Show. We saw it pass by a few times on our trip but never really stopped to watch the full show. Next time!

We had some time to kill so we walked through the shops and I remember specifically hanging out in Elias and Co for a while telling Mike how badly I wanted to get some purses and bracelets, but then we heard the music for the parade and headed outside! There was plenty of space to stop and watch, so that is what we did!

This picture was taken while Mike had coffee in his mouth, but I was too excited!

Mike became obsessed with the soundtrack to the Pixar Play Parade, which is why that is the title of this trip report! Literally, everything was counted down to fun on our trip.

After that, we still had about 20 minutes to kill before the Diamond Mad T Party would start so we headed over to one of Mike's favorite things!

The wait time and ride itself took us about 15 minutes to get through. I enjoyed the ride, but our monitor wasn't working on our car so we missed out on that aspect. I couldn't remember if it was supposed to have something or not until someone else in the car mentioned it. Oh well! I assumed it was supposed to be like the radio and it was fine.

We were able to grab our drinks for the party a little bit before it started.

I ordered the Queen's Red Rose and Mike had the Diamond Zombie. I loved his glow cube!

This party was AMAZING! I'm sad that it is going away. The band killed it and the DJ was really awesome too!

It was now about 6:30 and I gave Mike the choice to decide if we should run over to Disneyland to ride Indiana Jones or if we should try the other specialty drink and watch the DJ and dancers for a while. His decision was:

To get the Pineapple Mad-garita. This was my favorite of the three drinks!

Feelin' the music.

It was about 7:15 at this point and we needed to head out to get back to the E-Ticket Club on time. On the way out, we saw Five and a Dime and watched for a bit. The singer seemed a bit tired, but I suppose I would be too if I had to have her job and sing/dance all day! Goofy was great and danced too. That was adorable.

We made it back to the E-Ticket Club and I took some pics for everyone!

We grabbed some desserts and had some water.

We definitely didn't need to partake in any of the complimentary adult beverages. My review of the club level is that... it is not worth it. The people there talked through most of the fireworks or stood and blocked other people's views - mainly ours. They did pipe in the music and dim the lights. This fireworks show really isn't the same without the projections. It was cool to see the top of the Matterhorn turn into the volcano but that was about all the effect we got. I'm glad we chose not to upgrade as we had considered it. Maybe we were there on an off night. Oh well!

After that, we hit the hay. We were exhausted after this long travel/dancing day!

Coming Up - Our first full day in the parks! ​

 

[mindylee847]

Yay I'm so glad you've started your TR! So excited to read all about it

Love the button that you got when you arrived. Definitely an accomplishment to be celebrated!

Woah, family of the day?! That sounds so cool! Can't wait to hear if you guys go to the lounge. And your room looks SO nice!

So glad you are here! The button was so adorable. I only wore it the first night though, Idk why. Probably should have showed it off more! And seriously, that room and the hotel blew my mind. If you ever get the chance, definitely stay there!

 

[lwanthony]

Great day! We have never made it a priority to get to the dance party and now I am regretting that. It looks like a lot of fun, I'm bummed it is going away before our next trip. The same can be said for the Pixar parade, but it looks like we will have to schedule a time to see it, if for no other reason than to hear the sound track!

Keep it up, can't wait for more!

-Lane

 

[OregonMomToWDW]

I am so glad you got to experience the Mad T Party and it doesn't look that the party was having an "off" night. Sorry the "club level" experience wasn't all that spectacular. It is nice when you get to find out that the money you saved was the right idea.

 

[mindylee847]

Great day! We have never made it a priority to get to the dance party and now I am regretting that. It looks like a lot of fun, I'm bummed it is going away before our next trip. The same can be said for the Pixar parade, but it looks like we will have to schedule a time to see it, if for no other reason than to hear the sound track!

Keep it up, can't wait for more!

-Lane

Definitely make some time to check out the parade! We actually had a great standing spot when we just walked right out of the store so you may not even have to really worry about it taking up too much of your time. And you'll be singing the soundtrack for days!

I am so glad you got to experience the Mad T Party and it doesn't look that the party was having an "off" night. Sorry the "club level" experience wasn't all that spectacular. It is nice when you get to find out that the money you saved was the right idea.

The Mad T Party was definitely a hightlight of our trip. It was such a blast. I didn't tell my husband too much about it in case it didn't live up to my expectations, but it definitely exceeded them!

As far as the Club level goes, maybe it is more worth it had we been able to get in earlier for some of the dinner type snacks or if we had any more room for alcohol in our systems. Those drinks at the T Party were strong! The views were pretty great up there so I can only imagine how amazing it looks from those rooms up there. So there are definitely some perks to it, just not worth it for my husband and I.

 

[missangelalexis]

What a great first day in the parks! I'm glad you were able to catch the parade and see the Mad T Party!

I'm sorry to hear the club level wasn't all that great. But at least you got to experience it for free and know in the future that it probably isn't worth it!

 

[mindylee847]

Day 2 - Part 1: Good Morning, Disney!

Today was our first FULL day in Disneyland! That's always such an exciting day. No travel, actually got sleep - but guess what? We were starving! We clearly did not have enough to eat the day before. We had been hoping for a better selection on the Club Level to only find sweets so our tummies were rumbling just as much as a Pooh Bear.

I woke up this morning too early. That became a trend for most of the trip. We were two hours behind so I was wide awake by 6 AM (which is 8 AM for my normal time) and our reservations weren't until 7:45 AM. I laid in bed for a while knowing that my feet would need all the rest they could get and eventually got up to shower. We headed over to Fantasy Tower around 7:15 hoping to get in early!

They were able to accommodate us thirty minutes early.

On our way to checking in, I noticed how crazy and loud Goofy's Kitchen was. I decided that if this breakfast was really that great, we would be cancelling our Storyteller's Breakfast to fit in another Steakhouse 55 visit. We already had a breakfast ADR here for Thursday as well and were considering going here Friday morning before our shuttle picked us up. This menu had multiple veggie options and was very convenient for us.

Mike ordered the Huevos Rancheros.

Huevos Rancheros - two eggs, corn tortillas, cheese and black beans with fresh pico de gallo, guacamole and sour cream

He absolutely LOVED this dish. I tried a bite of it this morning and thought it was delicious! Although, I don't like my eggs runny so if I had ordered, I would have asked for over hard. This was a particularly spicy dish and my stomach was too empty to be able to handle something like that.

I ordered the egg-white omelet with a side of rye bread toast. I had a choice between potatoes or fruit and chose the potatoes - I can never say no to a potato!

Egg-White Omelette - egg whites with mushroom, tomato, onion and peppers; with toast or bagel

This was pretty much exactly what I expected from this dish except that the mushrooms were AMAZING in this omelet. I suppose for a steakhouse, they better have darn good mushrooms and they SO do here. I would have asked for a side of them if I wasn't so full! The potatoes were a little bit of a let down, but I'm used to really oily and cheesy ones in WI so that's probably why! I would definitely order this again if I had the chance to go back.

After that, we walked around Fantasy Tower a bit and checked out some of the decorations. There was a humongous shadow box type display that we really spent a few minutes admiring.

I loved getting to walk by this topiary every morning!

Adventure Tower!

The music that played in the lobby here was great. It was as if we were walking around Adventureland!

Obligatory mouse ear selfie! #ShareYourEars

That's it for my post today! Didn't want to get into the actual park time since I've got quite a bit of work to do today. Hope I didn't make you too hungry.

Coming Up - Our first real day in California Adventure!​

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a great breakfast, glad it was tasty! Love the pictures of the shadowbox, very cool!

 

[lwanthony]

We have never done Steak house 55 for breakfast! It looks fantastic! We may need to make the walk form the GCH for breakfast this year!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Joining in and great start! Congratulations on getting your MBA - and also very sorry to hear of the loss of your father.

Congrats on being the E-ticket family ... at least you learned from it that you didn't regret not doing club level!

Glad you enjoyed the pixar parade - I thought it was pretty darn fun (though I guess pales in comparison to some of the new parades). You might enjoy this video I took during our last trip to Walt Disney World ... it is of the Rainy Day Cavalcade that ran as Festival of Fantasy was rained out. And it featured, you guess it, Count Down to Fun!

I love when Minnie and Daisy wave their arms during the "Woooooo!" in the song .... and yes, that was the entity of the parade


So glad you enjoyed the breakfast at Steakhouse 55 - definitely a favorite from our trip. I love all the pictures in there. Also love those shadowboxes and other pictures they had all around the Disneyland Hotel

 

[mindylee847]

We have never done Steak house 55 for breakfast! It looks fantastic! We may need to make the walk form the GCH for breakfast this year!

Absolutely head over there for breakfast! I forgot to mention that the coffee there was so good too that we didn't need any cream or sugar either. Everything was really great there and they accept the Disney Visa 10% off discount. Since we aren't annual passholders, it was one of the only places we were able to get a food discount!

Joining in and great start! Congratulations on getting your MBA - and also very sorry to hear of the loss of your father.

Congrats on being the E-ticket family ... at least you learned from it that you didn't regret not doing club level!

Glad you enjoyed the pixar parade - I thought it was pretty darn fun (though I guess pales in comparison to some of the new parades). You might enjoy this video I took during our last trip to Walt Disney World ... it is of the Rainy Day Cavalcade that ran as Festival of Fantasy was rained out. And it featured, you guess it, Count Down to Fun!

I love when Minnie and Daisy wave their arms during the "Woooooo!" in the song .... and yes, that was the entity of the parade


So glad you enjoyed the breakfast at Steakhouse 55 - definitely a favorite from our trip. I love all the pictures in there. Also love those shadowboxes and other pictures they had all around the Disneyland Hotel

Thanks for joining in! And thank you for the congratulations and sympathies. It's been a crazy few months.

Love this rainy day parade!! So cool and great soundtrack. I'm glad that they do something like this when they have to cancel the parade. It's adorable.

 

[mindylee847]

Day 2 - Part 2: Off to the Racers

We got to the California Adventure gates by 8:38 AM per the time stamp on the picture I took of us being SUPER excited to finally check out Cars Land!

We were going to be utilizing those Magic Morning hours - which these were weird for me since I'm used to Disney World. I felt like they were totally worth it in regards to California Adventure, but seemed to be hit or miss with Disneyland.

We stopped for a quick photo with the man and mouse themselves.

And then booked it on over to our destination!

We got here about 5 minutes after 9. The bottleneck was a bit crazy... people yelling about strollers and height requirements as we pushed our way into the queue. We were in and done with the ride within 20 minutes. Here are some shots of the queue which was themed in a cute way:

I love me some puns!

Alright so don't kill me - I thought this ride was done wonderfully. The themeing and use of the characters was perfect. But I definitely enjoy Test Track more in EPCOT which is kind of what I thought this would be like in a way. I don't know what I was expecting but this ride is so hyped up so maybe that's just all it was. And now that I've experienced a lot more of Disneyland and what it offers, it definitely is one of the best rides there - I just can't justify those waits!

So anyways, we then went and toured some more of Cars Land as we made our way to our next destination!

I was definitely in love with all the details they had put into this land. We just watched the movie a few days before the trip as a refresh and everything was really just perfect. I really loved the bathroom signs!

For the rest of our "Magic Morning" we decided to hit Paradise Pier for two rides.

Mike went over to California Screamin' single rider and was on within minutes. I wasn't sure if I could handle the coaster with my TMJ and didn't want to risk a headache or anything for the day. I hung out and watched some of the coasters shoot off through the track.

Here's my version of the ride that I can handle:

We had time to squeeze in one more ride before the crowds came in so we hit Toy Story Midway Mania with a five minute wait.

Mike won and he was excited to get a cat!

Well for those of you who know the layout of the park... the next ride we would be coming across is Mickey's Fun Wheel... OF DOOM!! I am not a ferris wheel person. I'll do most any ride (pending my TMJ pain) except for a ferris wheel. I don't like the way they rock and how this one could obviously just fall off into the lake and I'd drown in a cage. I mean, logically, that makes total sense right?

So coming up... Do I face my fears?? Or do I just continue on my journey never knowing how "Fun" this Fun Wheel is?? Bom, Bom, BOMMMMMMM!​