Our 1st cruise, a Wonder wander from Van-San Diego Sept 2015 w/Navigators COMPLETED 11/11/15

[bcwife76]

Day 4 continued:

Soon it was time for our spa appt so we took the kids back to the club and let the counsellors know that we would be in the spa for an hour or so and wouldn't be able to access our wave phones.
We had booked the Exotic Rasul treatment because it sounded quite fun and even possibly sexy. Has anyone else done this? Yeah. We didn't find it sexy. At all.

A private tiled room, with a tiled bench and a shower built for two. Then your own private sauna room. Great, right?
So first we put on the face masks/scrubs and then wash them off. That was my favourite part, skin felt so smooth/clean/invigorated. Fantastic!! Then we did the body scrubs and body masks. Fun times. Not exactly 'throwing' mud at each other, more like rubbing it on. And the scrub HURT. Not sexy. In the least.

Then we went into the sauna. We were supposed to stay in there for up to 15 minutes off and on. Oh my lord. I could not breathe. It was way too hot. I lasted maybe 90 seconds the first time, then came rushing out, trying to catch my breath. Drank some cold water then went back in. Lasted less than a minute. Rinse repeat. Frank lasted longer than I did but not by much. 15 minutes in that sauna?! Are you freakin' kidding me!!

Finally we just helped wash the mud off of each other. And the shower kept stopping. I guess it was a water-saving measure but it was darn annoying. Once all the mud was off there was lotion to put on each other. And then we had lots of time to kill lol

Nope....it was hot and steamy and not in the good way. Sorry to disappoint but it was about as far from sexy as I could imagine.

Wish I had just booked a massage instead.

By the time we got out it was nearly 5pm. Eventhough we drank all the water they gave us we were still thirsty and still had a bit of vodka to kill off in our bottleso we grabbed some sodas and went back to the cabin. Frank really wanted to see Ant Man and decided to skip the last show so we made plans to meet back at the cabin to do some more packing after our shows. I went to get the girls from the club but they were having a good time and didn't want to leave so I said I'd pick them up on my way to the last show.

Had the cabin to myself so did a bit more packing and then watched a bit of Pitch Perfect 2 on tv. At 6pm I went back to the kids club and the girls still refused to come out. So I ended up going to the last show, Disney Dreams, by myself. It was a bit weird, all of us off doing our own things. But then I got a good seat right on an aisle and didn't have to referee fighthing kids so in the end it was kind of nice. I thought the show itself started off a bit slow and I was even contemplating leaving at one point but I'm glad I didn't because in the end I really enjoyed it.

Even got to see Clayton doing one more Carlton dance woohoo!!

As soon as it was over I beelined for the door (another plus of not having anyone else to drag out of a crowded theatre!) and went back up to the cabin. Frank was dressed for dinner and was filling out the onboard surveys they leave for you. Then we finished off the packing - oops. Glad we brought an extra back pack in one of our suitcases. Double checked that everyone had an outfit to wear the next morning for the carryons as well as pj's for that night and clean undies, plus assorted toiletries and the suitcases were done.

Our last dinner was in Tritons so we grabbed the girls from the kids club - but they REALLY wanted to go back once more- we said that when the counsellors came round at 9pm they could go back to the clubs for a bit.

We got to our table first and I took some pics:

Our table mates arrived shortly after - the husband leaned over and said to me "are you letting the kids go to the kids club tonight?" I said "absolutely!!" He grinned - I think they were relieved we were doing it too! I think we all felt a bit guilty doing it for the last night, but we really wanted to enjoy one last dinner and bonus, it could be adult only! lol

So we let our servers know and they brought the kids' food out as quickly as could be. As for the food, well my dear old memory fails me again. I know I had two appetizers, the first one was fantastic and the second one was french onion soup which i was not too thrilled with. My entree was delicious (whatever it was lol) and I had souffle for dessert which I didn't care for (too eggy).

Anyway after the kids were all picked up we had a good 45 minutes of just the four of us adults and had such a blast, getting to know each other a bit more and just having great adult conversations without having to talk over the heads of little ones!

During this time we also passed out our envelopes to our servers and gave hearty thanks for jobs well done. We parted ways with our table mates and said our goodbyes as we wouldn't see each other in the morning at breakfast (they were going to do Express Walk off).

Then we took a nice walk along deck 4 and enjoyed the beautiful evening.

Eventually we went back to get the girls as time was marching on and we had an early and busy day ahead of us. We skipped the Til We Meet Again show and got the girls, making sure their bracelets were removed!

Back up to our room and everyone fell asleep quite quickly. Thank goodness. 6:15am was when we set our alarm for and it was going to come too soon.

Next up: Disembarkation day aka The Gong Show/Sh*t Show that is San Diego terminal.

 

[Angeejoe]

How can a beverage be too wet ??? That cracked me up, I think I would've been laughing in the coffee shop!!

You guys are looking so nice & relaxed!

 

[Princess and Queen]

That cruise looks great! Would you be willing to post your Navigators?

 

[bcwife76]

That cruise looks great! Would you be willing to post your Navigators?

I would if I still had them DH accidentally recycled them when we got home

 

[pepe3penelope]

I would if I still had them DH accidentally recycled them when we got home

What?!?!? He recycled them?!? Blasphemy!!! J/k!!!

DH knew I got one to mark up and one as a keepsake!

All caught up but will post comments later tonight or tomorrow.

 

[bcwife76]

Day 5: Disembarkation and off to Disneyland!

That morning our alarm was set for 6:15am as we had to be in the Walt Disney theatre for 6:45am for customs. Guess what time I was awake at? 4:50am. I had to go to the bathroom and never really fell back asleep. You know how it is, the harder you try to fall asleep the worse it is. I think I dozed but I never really slept. When the alarm went off I pulled the covers over my head and groaned.

And of course, our kids who are usually up with the roosters were fast asleep and very hard to wake up. Not fun. Eventually we were all dressed. We made sure all our carryons were packed up and that everything was pretty much ready to go for when we got back to the cabin. We figured we'd be back up stairs within half an hour and would just watch some cartoons and relax for a bit before heading to Tritons for our last breakfast. Boy, were we wrong.

So we get down to the theatre and there is just a small line. Great, we think. Not so bad. Then they usher you inside and that's where the crowds were. EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM. They had it so you could only enter the theatre on the far right and we were ushered over to the far LEFT. Awesome. It was 6:40am at this point.

Customs were on the stage, about 6 or 8 officers I believe, sitting at a long table. People were being led from their seats down a long line and up onto the stage. On the screen was a notice that you were not allowed to use your cell phone while in the theatre. There was also a big table of coffee and pastries at the end of the stage as people walked off. We didn't know if those were for passengers as they finished with customs or if they were for the officers, as no one was touching them. We were about half way up from the front, in the row where people can walk by. At one point this family (parents, kids, grandparents) walked by us, complaining that why weren't they allowed to just go up to customs because they were concierge don't you know and they are very important and why wasn't a cast member helping them?! I almost tripped one of them. I have no time for self important, self absorbed people. Especially at 7am when I haven't even had one cup of damn coffee.

Kids were getting restless, babies were crying all over the theatre, people were just grumpy. NOT a good end to our vacation. Somewhere shortly after 7:30am a woman came down the stairs with a kid with her (turns out they were from the concierge family) and complained to a CM that their daughter had thrown up. The CM went to clean it up immediately but this woman argued with the CM the reason her daughter threw up was because she was hungry. She needed to eat NOW and thus they needed to get their entire family through customs at that instant. And what happened? They got moved to the front of the damn line!!!!


Are you EFFING kidding me???!! I'm hungry!! My kids are hungry!!!! Every person in that damn theatre was hungry!!!! SERIOUSLY?!!!!
People in the row behind us started whispering about it but didn't know exactly what had happened so I turned around and said "well don't you know they are special snowflakes. Darling daughter was sick and she was hungry so they let them all pass the entire line." These people could not believe it and before long our entire row and the row behind us were talking about them lol Well after that we all kind of bonded over it and we got to talking to all these people behind us (a lovely couple from Edmonton Alberta!) Made the time go by faster. As our row finally got up to move we were all still chatting about the cruise, Canadian politics, flying, really anything we could talk about the pass the time! We even chatted about the fact no one had touched those pastries on stage. And then don't you know, a little girl a few families in front of us took a pastry! Good on ya kid lol we practically high fived and other people in line thought we were nuts.

Finally we got through customs and it was 8:10am when we got back to our room Just enough time to grab our carryons, do a final sweep of our room and of course grab our final bill that was tucked into the fish outside our room Ahem.

So we took the elevator down to deck 3 and when the doors opened crowds of people were everywhere. Yikes. Is it always this disorganized on disembarkation morning? Because many, many people (ourselves included) had absolutely no idea where we were going. Eventually we found the line for Tritons, it met with the line for Parrot Cay and intersected with the line of people waiting for Express Walk off.

Yeah, Express Walk off by the way? Not so much express. We had planned to do that but the day before decided not to and now I'm glad we didn't. Names kept being called over the PA system of those people who still had not known up for customs. And of course, until those people were cleared, no one could get off the ship. Our table in Tritons was right by a window and we finally saw the Express walk off line start moving around 8:45am or so.

Our last meal was .....not great. I understand they need to get us off the ship but the food quality definitely suffers lol I got about 15 pieces of bacon (good lord, who's eating all that!!!?) and made the mistake of asking for two boiled eggs. I thought I was getting soft boiled, nope they were hard boiled um, guess next time I'll have to skip the eggs altogether me thinks!

We got out of breakfast probably by 9:15 or a bit sooner and decided to wait in the nearest lounge to Tritons for our luggage tags to be called (we were in the Donald Duck group). Well that was another long wait. By then the kids were beyond annoying and were fighting with each other. It was just a gong show. Finally at 10:10am our luggage tags were called. We were one of the last groups to be called off the ship - I thought they wanted everyone off by 9:30?

Anyway, we got off the beautiful ship and I took a couple of last photos

So long beautiful Disney Wonder, can't wait to see you again in 2016!!!

As soon as we were outside the warmth of San Diego hit us. Wow. Inside the terminal we found our luggage easily then entered yet another long line to get out of the terminal. Luckily that line moved VERY quickly.

Outside it was HOT Wowza. We had all dressed in shorts and tshirts in anticipation of the heat but boy oh boy, October 1st and holy hell it was hot.

We had to head to Avis rental a few blocks away to pick up our car to drive up to Anaheim; google maps made the office seem not too far away but in the end we opted for a cab. This ended up being a very smart idea!! Yes the taxi line was long (no surprise) but it moved ok and we were in an air conditioned cab within half an hour. The ride was short but it was hilly and through construction - 2 kids, plus multiple suitcases, plus heat would not have made for a pleasant hike so it was $6.70 well spent on the cab ride lol

And guess what greeted us at Avis? A short but painfully SLOW line. Of course. I took Gwen next door to 7/11 and loaded up on bottled water and some snacks for the ride up.

Frank had reserved a compact car - Ford Focus, but they were out so we got a VW Bug. Oh lordy this did not please my husband one bit lol He used to work for Volkswagen for 2 years loooong ago and hated it. Oh well, what're you gonna do? We located the car in the poorly lit garage (seriously, it was dark and scary. Everyone was hitting the panic buttons on their key fobs so they could find their rental cars!!) Barely got all our luggage in the trunk of the funny clown car , loaded a map on Frank's phone and away we went!!!

I hope you don't all mind but I wanted to add just a quick Disneyland TR to this one instead of writing a separate TR in the Disneyland section. We were only there barely 3 days and it honestly was not our best trip to DL/DCA sadly so I wanted to just run down some of the highlights. Plus I wanted to write a final words section to this TR about our final thoughts on the cruise and our future in cruising, so stay tuned!

 

[bcwife76]

PS. Could anyone tell me why some of my photos keep disappearing? I'll go back over to read my TR and notice that some of my photos no longer show up, they just say 'img'?? So I've gone through AGAIN and put the photos that disappeared back in. Frustrating

 

[Angeejoe]

PS. Could anyone tell me why some of my photos keep disappearing? I'll go back over to read my TR and notice that some of my photos no longer show up, they just say 'img'?? So I've gone through AGAIN and put the photos that disappeared back in. Frustrating

I'm not sure. I've noticed it on other TRs too. It's weird

 

[pepe3penelope]

Nooooooooo! Your DCL TR is over already?!?!?

We live in the LA area and I remember how we went through a heat wave leading up to our cruise. Hot and humid. Ugh!

I remember on disembarkation day how incredibly frustrated I was! I'll post more details on my TR. Let me just say that we also heard a couple announcements for missing guests to the Walt Disney theater. We weren't able to get off the ship until 9:40ish because we had to wait for our purple Minnie to be announced. It seemed like forever for our group to be called.

I would have been flaming mad at the concierge family also. Hunger combined with obnoxious people around you is not cool at all!

We also stayed 2 nights at Disneyland. Am very interested to hear your point of view.

 

[bcwife76]

Nooooooooo! Your DCL TR is over already?!?!?

We live in the LA area and I remember how we went through a heat wave leading up to our cruise. Hot and humid. Ugh!

I remember on disembarkation day how incredibly frustrated I was! I'll post more details on my TR. Let me just say that we also heard a couple announcements for missing guests to the Walt Disney theater. We weren't able to get off the ship until 9:40ish because we had to wait for our purple Minnie to be announced. It seemed like forever for our group to be called.

I would have been flaming mad at the concierge family also. Hunger combined with obnoxious people around you is not cool at all!

We also stayed 2 nights at Disneyland. Am very interested to hear your point of view.

Two reasons I heard for disembarkation due to customs on the ship was so awful was (a) the customs agents didn't show up until 6:30am when they were supposed to be there at 6am and (b) passengers were also not showing up when they were supposed to (say, they had a 6:15 time and they didn't arrive until 6:45 or later) - both of which caused major delays. And both of those situations were really NOTHING do with with DCL so I can't fault the cruise line for any of that. San Diego terminal better find a better solution though, if they want to keep a regular cruise trade

 

[pepe3penelope]

Two reasons I heard for disembarkation due to customs on the ship was so awful was (a) the customs agents didn't show up until 6:30am when they were supposed to be there at 6am and (b) passengers were also not showing up when they were supposed to (say, they had a 6:15 time and they didn't arrive until 6:45 or later) - both of which caused major delays. And both of those situations were really NOTHING do with with DCL so I can't fault the cruise line for any of that. San Diego terminal better find a better solution though, if they want to keep a regular cruise trade

I agree that at the time I knew it wasn't DCL's fault. When we were out of San Pedro for the LA cruise and Port Canaveral, there weren't any problems. In fact, so impressively efficient. I've been reading a lot of negative feedback about the San Diego port. Not sure why. They need to get their act together!

 

[DnA2010]

kid soup...ahh yes kid soup...so the kid soup was one of the negatives on our Fantasy cruise for sure- I don't even know if DD11 got in the pools much, but we were all def shocked by the pools on the fantasy in comparison to the pools on Oasis (RCL) we did the Aqua duct lots, but DD def missed the pool variety on Oasis. I def did not get in kid soup although DH and I did venture into the empty adult pool a few times. Pools are def weak on Disney ships.

DH and I discussed a couple spa appt on our cruise but in the end decided it was just too pricey (that darn USD strikes again) but I'm thinking I'm kinda glad now. We did Palo brunch which we loved.

Looking forward to yout DL section, I may do a bit of a TR for our trip last week

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

Hey Angela, I'm so bummed to hear about the Rasul but still think your a great wife for booking it for the two of you.

I didn't think we'd ever get off that ship either! I think we waited longer for that cruise than all 3 combined cruises at Port Canaveral, San Diego really needs to figure that out.

I will try to get our Navigators posted on here this weekend if you don't mind.

 

[bcwife76]

Hey Angela, I'm so bummed to hear about the Rasul but still think your a great wife for booking it for the two of you.

I didn't think we'd ever get off that ship either! I think we waited longer for that cruise than all 3 combined cruises at Port Canaveral, San Diego really needs to figure that out.

I will try to get our Navigators posted on here this weekend if you don't mind.

Eventhough it wasn't as good as we were hoping, I think both Frank and I are glad we tried the exotic rasul. If we hadn't done it, we'd always wonder what we had been missing! And there were definitely parts of it that we enjoyed Next cruise maybe I'll just wait to book something and see what they have on 'special' at the spa on any given day.

Disembarkation started to feel like a hostage crisis at one point.

If you could post the navigators, that would be fantastic!! I've had a few people ask in this thread for them.

 

[bcwife76]

So as promised I will do a Final thoughts post on the cruise, but first I wanted to do a mini Disneyland TR.

When last we left we were bombing up the I5 from San Diego to Anaheim (later than we had planned, grrrr). Traffic was on our side as we left San Diego at 11:48 and we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, Castle Inn, at 1:10!

Castle Inn by the way was not our first choice - I prefer to stay at the Best Western across from the main gates - but Frank got a corporate rate through work and it was only $80/night. No, that didn't include breakfast but the cheapest rate we could find the BW for during that time was around $140/night so we it was worth the savings. We already had a character breakfast planned at Plaza Inn for our last morning (which would have happened regardless of having a breakfast room at our hotel or not) so we only had one other breakfast to buy so we still came out ahead.

Our room was all ready to go so we dropped off our luggage and headed out. Frank took the car back to Avis rental and walked back to the Disneyland (Avis was only 3-4 blocks away from the hotel) while I walked with the girls over to the main gates. I had purchased our tickets through cheaptickets.ca (yay for ebates!! scored $80 cash back!!) so I had to go to the booths first to trade them for actual tickets. Must've timed it just right as there were NO lines when we got there and within minutes the place was mobbed! Weird. Anyway it was quite quick so we parked ourselves on a bench and waited for Frank to come back.



It's beginning to look a lot like the 60th anniversary:

Frank came along another 10 minutes later or so and we were through the turnstiles and into DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!

I don't know why but the first ride we usually do is Astro Orbiters:

After that we were going to do Astro Blasters but it was closed for about an hour so we meandered down Main street some more and got something to eat before attacking more rides.

Warninghoto heavy with not a lot of writing from this point on LOL

After riding as many rides as we could (MrToad, Alice in Wonderland, Teacups, carousel, Astro Blasters, etc) we left and walked through Downtown Disney as we had a 6:15 reservation at House of Blues for dinner.

But had to stop and let them watch the water for a bit:

We sat on the patio for dinner - it was a huge patio so plenty of room to spread out. Dinner was really good; I think Gwen had spagetti and Gabi opted for a fancy grilled cheese. As usual I can't remember what our entrees were but I know some food came back with us to our tiny hotel fridge as we were stuffed.

After dinner we walked back into Disneyland; we decided we had enough time to at least do Pirates of the Carribean once before seeing the new electric parade, Paint the Night, and the new fireworks.

Passed by It's a Small World (which we did not do this time, first time ever missing it LOL)

Yes my favourite ride!!!

Ugh, but the wait was long......

Totally worth it!

But guess what? WE MISSED PAINT THE NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And only managed to catch part of the new fireworks.

This was our only night to see them!!! The next night was the Halloween party which we did not have tickets to so we would be in DCA and on the Saturday we had to leave the parks by 5pm.

I was devastated. Seriously.

I've watched Paint the Night on You Tube, I've seen videos friends have taken....I remember the original electric parade from looooonnnnggg ago (last time we saw it I think was 2000?) so I was really REALLY looking forward to Paint the Night.

It still stings......

Honestly I don't want to think about it because even now it's bringing a tear to my eye

We left the park at the end of the Disneyland Forever fireworks (too busy watching to take any photos) and walked back to our hotel. It had been a long day and we were all exhausted.

 

[bcwife76]

Disneyland day 2!

I think we were all up by about 7:30 or so that Friday morning (it's now October 2nd, just to give you a date reference lol). Frank and I both grabbed showers and we were out the door by about 8:15 or so.

Our plan for that day was to start in California Adventure, do Soarin and RSR then go over to Disneyland for a bit before heading back to DCA by about 2pm and spend the rest of the day there since the Halloween Party would be starting later and they would be kicking us out of Disneyland anyway.

Well, we never left DCA! The entire day lol I don't think I've ever spent so much time in DCA as I have this past trip; in fact I think we now like DCA better than actual Disneyland (shock! say it ain't so!)

As soon as we were through the gates we did Soarin' over California, definitely my favourite ride there. This was Gabi's first time on it; in 2013 she was not big enough so I remember Gwen and I doing it with FP's and then Frank doing it with a single rider.

There was barely a line so we only waited maybe 10 minutes before we were through the doors. It was just as amazing as I remember (and of course it's been refurbished a bit) and thankfully Gabi loved it as much as the rest of it. So much so that as soon as we were out of the ride we grabbed Fast passes to go on it again later.

Then we headed over to Bugs Land and grabbed our FP's for RSR. The return time for Soarin' was 9:30-10:30 and I think RSR was 11:45-12:45. So after that we grabbed some breakfast at Flo's V8 cafe. I love Flo's, I think it's one of the best quick services places in either of the parks. The kids shared a kids breakfast, I had the brioche french toast (soooo yummy) and Frank had tamale breakfast.

After our bellies were full it was time to ride Soarin' again. Then Frank took Gwen on the grizzly river run while I took Gabi on the Little Mermaid. Normally there isn't a line for this ride - and there wasn't this time either. So we managed to ride it twice, plus Gabi got to buy her Ariel 'ears'.

Frank and Gwen met us outside the ride and then Gwen and I bought our ears as well.

Frank didn't find any ears (or a hat) that he liked - later that night he ended up buying a hat from the World of Disney store.

Anyway, I can't remember really which order we did all the rides in - I know we did RSR but only managed to do it once (boo). We did Maters Tow yard a couple of times, we did rides in Bugland, we went to the show It's Tough to be a Bug, we pulled FP's for the first World of Color show at 9:30pm that night...we did SO many rides, so you can see why we never left the park!! Get ready for more photos

Mommmmm stop taking my friggin picture!

Selfie!

Thank goodness we didn't miss seeing Aladdin one last time since they are closing it (grrrrrrrrr) in January. Pre-show nap

Hey Jake!

Time to cool off (it was close to 90F that day)

Pixar Parade:

For dinner we had a 6pm reservation at Wine Country Trattoria. HUGE disappoinment. The service was slow, the menu was small and the food was average. When I wrote my trip advisor review after we got home I think I titled it "Olive Garden at Disneyland."

Tell me, what is the point of making a reservation if I still have to wait 25 minutes for my table?

I think their faces say it all:

Dusk:

Finally we were seated:

The kids both had spagetti I believe. I had lasagne which was good but not fabulous. Frank had a chicken dish of some sort and he said the chicken was dry. Boo. We opted not to have dessert.

After dinner we opted to start lining up for our FP World of Color. We ended up down front, not realizing this was the 'splash zone'.

The couple seated next to us had rain poncho's on and told us the last time they had seen the show (about 2 weeks prior) they had gotten SOAKED. Her cell phone was actually in a ziplock bag because it had gotten so wet the time before she'd had to put it in a bag of rice.

Awesome. The sun had gone down and it was actually a little chilly. ****E.

So we have no photos of the show for fear of our phones drowning.

It was a spectacular show and we did get a bit wet - not drenched, but the mist made our skin and clothes rather damp. So by the time the show as over we were actually shivering!!! Jack, I wish we had our DCL blankets that night

We opted to leave the park by this time. It was getting late (10pm) and we still had to souvenir shop as we were leaving the next night. So we walked into Downtown Disney and dropped a nice wad of dough in the World of Disney store Then we went to Build a Bear because we had promised the girls they would each get one outfit for their bears (that they had made the year before here at home in a Build a Bear store).

Now lest you think we just let our kids go spend crazy - they were each given $200 from grandma before they left on the trip to spend. Thank you grandma

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Starbucks where Frank and I needed some sustenance and the girls got to split one of those bento boxes that comes with cheese, crackers and some fruit.

Think it was well after 11pm before we were walking through the doors of the Castle Inn

The girls collapsed into bed while we tried to do some packing before falling into bed exhausted ourselves just after midnight.

Next up: our final day in the parks, taking Uber for the first time, flying home in pj's and a final thoughts entry.

 

[bcwife76]

Our last day in California!

I'm dismayed to see how many photos issues the DisBoards is having right now. Grrrrr..... Looking back at my last entry so many of them just say IMG where the photo should be. Annoying! I'll have to go back over and see if I can put them on photobucket and put them here instead of just copying and pasting the link.

Anyway, I digress!

Our last day was Saturday October 3rd and we had a Magic Morning on our tickets so we had hoped to be at the Disney gates by 6:45am that morning. Well since the kids didn't get to bed til at least 11pm the night before and it was midnight when we crawled into bed, 6:45am was not going to happen. As it is by some miracle were packed and out of our room just before 8am. We checked out and had the hotel hold our luggage for later that afternoon and headed over to the parks.
The kids thought receiving all the 'high fours' was a blast from all the CM's lining main street. We headed to Peter Pan and there was already a hellish wait so in the end we never did go on Peter Pan

Gabi and I did the teacups a couple more times, plus Mr Toad while Frank and Gwen rode the Matterhorn.

Gabi, who had been quite camera shy for most of the trip, decided it was time to pose:

Of course when I tried to get in there for a selfie with the two of us she told me "no mommy, just me, not you!" Nice. Thanks kid.

We went over to the Haunted Mansion and grabbed fast passes and then it was time for our character breakfast at Plaza Inn.

Mmmmm.....waffles.....

Eeyore likes to beg for food, apparently

Lots of character fun!

Two years ago Gabi cried when Captain Hook came to our table - this year she loved him!

Well breakfast was done and it was now time for our Mansion FP so off we went. Loved the Halloween overlay!

When we came out of the ride we noticed a considerable uptick in crowds - it was barely 11am and the place was PACKED! It was hot, it was Gay Days and it was Halloween time. Wow! We didn't even bother riding Pirates again as the line was insufferable! We walked by Indiana Jones and Frank grabbed FP's for himself and Gwen - in the end they never ended up using them.

It was getting hotter by the minute and quite overwhelming so we made the decision to leave Disneyland and spend the rest of our precious hours at DCA. I snapped one more photo as we walked down Main Street:

Walking through the gates of DCA you could already notice the crowds were lighter. But it was still hotter than Hades!! Pretty sure it was well over 90F that day (the average temperature for Vancouver on October 3rd would've been about 60F, to give you an idea of how HOT we were )

We headed to the Disney Jr show to get some lovely A/C It hadn't changed much (not at all I don't think) since 2013 and Gwen was probably a little bored this time around but Gabi was right into it.

From there we headed straight to the Frozen sing-along show, enjoying even more cold air!

We ended up in the front row:

After the show the girls got to pick up one more souvenir at the Oakens trading post, then we went and did the Monsters Inc ride. Got some cold drinks after that, wandered around a bit more....

We then split up one more time, this time Frank took Gwen on ToT while Gabi and I wandered through Bugs Land (did one ride) and Carsland before heading back to .....Ariel......oy to the vey. I've lost track of how many times Gabi has now dragged me onto that ride lol

Frank took this one of Gwen while waiting in line for ToT:

Eventually we met back up and had a final meal at Smoke Jumpers Grill. Love that place, so yummy!! Gabi fell asleep in her chair! Guess all the late nights and early mornings had finally caught up with her! By the time we were done at Smoke Jumpers it was about 4:30 or so. The crowds had also grown considerably at DCA, the weather was still HOT and my ankles were being rubbed raw by my shoes (dammit, I thought I had broken them in before we left but the buggers wounded me anyway) So we decided it was time to leave the parks and limp off to our hotel to call Uber for a ride to LAX. Bye bye Disneyland resort

We got back to Castle Inn, retrieved our luggage and while Frank summoned Uber XL on his app (god he was way too happy about using that app and Uber in general lol since Vancouver does not allow Uber or Lyft) while I dug through our suitcases and found a more comfortable pair of shoes.

Our mini van arrived within 15-20 minutes, we loaded up and were on our way. It took nearly an hour to get to LAX, the traffic was fine but I think our Uber driver got lost once oh well, no harm done. We had already checked in for our Alaska Airlines flight before we went to bed the night before so all we needed to do was drop our luggage off. Once he dropped us curb side at Alaska, we found the counter easily enough and no waits so we loaded our luggage and were off. No waits at security....honestly we breezed right though. Our flight wasn't until 8:40pm and we were at our gate by 7pm at the latest. Time to kill.

Took books out for Gwen to read - also made her write one last journal entry. Took papers out for Gabi to practice writing her name and the alphabet. Took the girls to the bathroom and had them change into their jammies - we wouldn't be landing in Vancouver til nearly 11:30pm and were headed straight to a hotel at the airport so we figured it would be easier that way. They thought it was fun to be in their jammies on the plane.

Now, the flight was FULL - we had checked 2 suitcases to the tune of $25 each (which cost us $32CDN each, damn exchange) but still had 3 carryons (2 small suitcases, one back pack) plus a bag of duty free booze. They were asking people to gate check their carryons because the flight was full and they were afraid the overhead bins would all be full. Tough luck, someone else can gate check their crap. I want mine with me. Turns out we were the last people allowed on the plane to use the overhead bins. Anyone coming behind us (we were in row 8 and they had a weird way of loading the plane if you ask me) was forced to gate check. There was one spot left, so Frank put one of our carryon suitcases in it, the other one went under the seat in front of Gabi, his backpack went under the seat in front of Gwen and the booze went under the seat in front of me. The flight crew were quite tense because everyone seemed a bit annoyed about the whole situation and really, what do you expect? These days when you charge people to check bags of course more people are going to avoid that by using carryons only You just know that plane flew to Vancouver with a half-empty luggage compartment below!

Flight was uneventful and we landed a few minutes early. Gabi slept nearly the entire flight, Gwen slept through half of it. Customs was a breeze, we found our luggage quite quickly and we breezed through the COLD night air to the shuttle stop. Seriously, going from 90F to about 45F-50F in a matter of hours isn't fun

I don't think we waited too long for our shuttle, maybe 10 minutes max. Let me tell you the car was COLD when we got to it, so the seat warmers went on lol I love a toasty bum in the winter

We had made a ressie at the Days Inn - it was close, it had a free hot breakfast and parking was free - so it ticked all my boxes. See this cat:

This was taken in the lobby about 12:15am - when we came down for breakfast the next morning just after 9am he was STILL in the same position haha. Oh to be a cat.

Anyway I think we all had a decent sleep and breakfast was a nice assortment of bagels, waffles, cereal, yogurt, coffee, fruit etc and so forth. We checked out just after 10am and were on the road home - stopped by the dog kennel to pick up our pooch, Lacey (the reason we had the hotel was because the dog kennel is only 12 minutes from the airport but 45 minutes from our house and given the late hour of our arrival, it just made sense).

We were home well before noon and so it was time for the unpacking....laundry......and napping

Ok I'll be back with one more entry - final thoughts on our cruise

 

[pepe3penelope]

Boooooo!!!! I hate the end of trip reports!!!

I absolutely LOVE the cat picture. Sooooo adorable!!! Our family would have gently petted it.

Thank you for sharing! Funny thought...I kept thinking you have one daughter. I forgot that your daughter didn't want to get in the costumes you had for her and didn't want to take pictures earlier!!!

We are locals to DL and I have to say that it just gets busier every year. It's no wonder DL keeps raising the prices for us passholders.

We usually get warm weather in October. However, it has finally started to cool down the past couple of days. The past couple nights we've been wearing long sleeve PJ's and DH is finally sleeping with a a blanket!

I know what you mean about splitting up the kids so they can enjoy what they want. On our TR, I'll post at a later date about how excited we were that DS was finally tall enough for RSR and Soarin'. We got to ride as a family.

 

[bcwife76]

Oh my gosh we were SO excited that Gabi was now tall enough to join us all on RSR and Soarin' too! LOL Next trip to Disneyland will be when both girls are old enough - and tall enough - for EVERY single ride in those parks! DH wants to wait until Star Wars land is open but I'm not sure I can hold out *that* long Don't suppose you have any inkling how long before Star Wars land will be open? I know they haven't announced a date (or even a year!) yet.

 

[pepe3penelope]

Oh my gosh we were SO excited that Gabi was now tall enough to join us all on RSR and Soarin' too! LOL Next trip to Disneyland will be when both girls are old enough - and tall enough - for EVERY single ride in those parks! DH wants to wait until Star Wars land is open but I'm not sure I can hold out *that* long Don't suppose you have any inkling how long before Star Wars land will be open? I know they haven't announced a date (or even a year!) yet.

They have so much work to do and they haven't even done anything yet. I believe January 10 is when they will shut down the RR, Rivers of America, Tom sawyer island, etc. for I think 1 year! I'm not sure when it'll be complete. DH and I think it'll be at least 3 years from now but who knows.