PTR: 4 Adults, 3 Kids, 2 Birthdays, and our 1st Disneyland trip as a Family! (5/25 to 6/1)

[momtohms]

Hello!

We are quickly coming up on our trip, so I thought I'd get this started! I've never written a trip report before, but I've been reading them for months. As someone who loves talking plans, documenting memories, and taking endless amounts of pictures, it seemed right up my alley So here we go!

Introductions!

I'm C (or Christie), and will turn 30 in August! I'm a stay at home mom to three little girls (more on them soon!) This will be my third trip to Disneyland, my first was in 2000 with my parents & siblings, and the second was in 2002 on a High School choir trip. It has definitely been awhile! There was no California Adventure the first trip, and it was still very new the second time. I'm looking forward to seeing everything again and how much has changed. I've also been to Disney World once in 2006 with my college roomies & friends.

My DH, A, turned 31 earlier this year. He's an avionics technician for an airline, but also serves in the Air Force reserves. He has also been to Disneyland a couple of times, but like myself it has been awhile. Though last summer he spent two weeks over in Tokyo with the USAF and visited Tokyo DisneySea on a day off. He called and said "We have to take the girls to Disneyland, all I could think about there was how much fun they would have!" ::cue my crazy planning::

Our oldest DD is H and she'll turn 6 on our trip. She is just finishing up Kindergarten in the next couple of weeks! Her favorite Disney characters are Rapunzel, Belle, and Elsa. Fitting as her favorite colors are purple, yellow, and aqua. She's a good blend of sweet & spunk. We often joke that you'll find her out playing in the dirt with the boys, but she'll be wearing a dress.

Our middle DD is M and she is 4 1/2. She loves Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, and Snow White the most, but is my biggest Disney Princess fan overall. She loves all things pink and sparkly, of course. Out of the three she is the most sensitive and cautious. I expect she will be my one who prefers to stick to the non-dark and slower rides, but she might surprise us and beg to ride Space Mountain 5 times a day!

Our youngest DD is S and she turns 3 on our trip, on the same day our oldest DD will turn 6 (yep, same birthday!) She loves Minnie & Mickey, Sofia the First, and Cinderella the best, but has recently become a huge Baymax fan. Her impressions of him saying "hairy baby, hairy baby" or "there there" are spot on. If you hear about a giant display of plush Baymax dolls collapsing at a store in Disneyland the last week of May, it would be safe to assume she was the cause. Ha! She will undoubtedly be a source of entertainment, energy, and hopefully not too many new gray hairs on our trip ;-)


Also joining us are my parents! G & T. They are arriving a couple of days ahead of us and leaving the day before. We live 2000 miles apart so we are very excited to see them and spend time with them, and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a bit of a relief that the adults will out number the kids for most of our trip ;-) They have also been to Disneyland a few times (most recently in 2005, I believe) and they spent their honeymoon at Disney World many years (*cough* today is their 32nd anniversary *cough*) ago.


I'll leave you with this and will update soon with more plans and details. Thanks for reading, and joining us on our first (of hopefully many!) family trips to Disney

 

[kaoden39]

Hi, I look forward to reading along!

 

[momtohms]

Hi, I look forward to reading along!

Hello! Thanks! I'm excited to have my first reader

 

[kaoden39]

Your DDs are adorable!

 

[momtohms]

Your DDs are adorable!

Thank you! They are going to be so much fun on this trip!

 

[VandVsmama]

Following along! You have a lovely family

 

[momtohms]

The Surprise & Travel Plans!

Our girls have absolutely no idea we are going anywhere, let alone to Disneyland! Before we leave, we have to drop off our extra car at DH's work so we are planning to keep the girls up and have a family movie night! We'll tell them right before it is time to leave that Daddy has to take the car to work, and that they get to ride in Mommy's car to follow him so he can get back home. He works at the airport, so we'll just drive on over to the employee parking lot and ask the girls if they want to go see Nona & Pop Pop (technically true, just not in the same state the girls will think we are going too, ha!) . Then tell them we're going right now!

I have no idea if they'll figure it out before we get down there. It will depend on how much they pay attention, especially my oldest as she is reading pretty well now. I'm also fully expecting at least one person to ask if we are going to Disneyland on the flight. It would be awesome to be able to get them all the way to the hotel, but we're fine with them finding out earlier. I can't wait to see their reactions!

Hotel!

We are staying at the Paradise Pier Hotel! With DH's military discount it ended up being a fairly reasonable rate, more than many of the off site choices but not by a very large amount. My parents are also staying there and we're hoping to have adjoining rooms.

Tentative Itinerary!

Monday May 25th: Fly in, drive to Disneyland and check in at hotel. We're not expecting our rooms to be ready until much later, but we at least wanted to get checked in and possibly store our luggage. Since we are arriving on Memorial Day, we decided to not hit the parks until Tuesday. So to add a bit of Disney magic to our first day, I booked a late character breakfast with Mickey & friends (Surf's Up at the PCH Grill). After that we'll see how everyone is doing, drive around if naps are needed or go walk through Downtown Disney until we get the call that our rooms are ready! No plans for the late afternoon/evening, maybe hit the pool and we'll grab dinner somewhere and hopefully get to bed early.

Tuesday May 26th: First day in the parks! We're starting off at Disneyland since we'll have EE at 7am (So early!) We want to take advantage of a couple of the early entry times since I'm sure it will be busy that week with the 60th celebrations starting, and we are going to be in the parks on Grad Nights as well. No super set plans, we'll probably try and do a bunch in the mornings and then take an early afternoon break back at the hotel before going back in the evenings for a bit. We have park hoppers so we can be flexible with those too.

Wednesday May 27th: This will be our 2nd park day (EE at California Adventure), again no set plans just enjoying the parks and having a great time!

Thursday May 28th: Beach day! Sleeping in for sure, and then heading to a beach (TBD, but if you have suggestions I'd love to hear them!) and maybe driving around to do some sightseeing. Getting In n Out burgers is a given We'll finish the day with a laid back evening back at the hotel and my husband and I are hoping to get a little kid free date in too!

There's a chance we may flip Wednesday & Thursday around. There are grad nights on Tues, Weds, and Fri so if Tues is just totally crazy with the grad night crowds we might do the beach Weds and then the parks on Thurs when it isn't a grad night. But we'll see how it goes and decide when we get there

Friday May 29th: Birthday day! My oldest and youngest share a birthday (3 years apart) so we have a lot of fun planned for all our girls. Starting off at Ariel's Grotto with a princess breakfast, of course! My older two have BBB appointments in the afternoon and we'll do something fun with my youngest DD as well. They're getting special princess dresses to wear (I ordered adorable dresses inspired by their favorite princesses from Etsy!) , and we'll just have a great day celebrating in the parks

Saturday May 30th: Spending the day in San Diego! We have family who live in the area and we are taking the girls to the zoo as well. They LOVE zoos. We have memberships to our local zoo, and the zoo in Seattle as well and go often. I've always wanted to see the SD zoo myself, so I'm really looking forward to this too!

Sunday May 31st: My parents are heading home and will leave for the airport around lunch time. It'll be sad to see them go, but we'll have the last morning to spend time together and we will be in Seattle about 6 weeks later so it won't be farewell for too long! After they leave, we're heading back to the parks again.

Monday June 1st: Our last day We don't leave until the evening so our plan is to check-out early, and spend the morning & afternoon in the parks until it is time to head to the airport.

Those last two not quite full days in the parks will mostly be to ride any favorite rides again, see some shows or parades we may have missed, and just enjoy everything! Since our girls are young, we thought having more days to spread out our time in the parks would work best so we don't feel too rushed and can take breaks and hopefully have a chance to do and see, and eat many things!

*Phew!* Cookies for all of you who made it through that wall o' text!

I think I got to all the major details!

Until next time

Thanks for reading!

 

[momtohms]

Following along! You have a lovely family

thank you so much!

Your DDs are adorable!

Thanks! We think they are pretty cute!

 

[kaoden39]

Your plans look great. I think that you're smart to avoid the parks on Memorial Day. One year my best friend I got there on President's Day. We figured that people would clear out early to go home. Ha! It was insane! The only thing we rode was the Monorail into Disneyland from DTD. We walked out by the front gate and back through DTD. We didn't even attempt to get back on the Monorail to go back. Busy, busy, busy!

I hope that you're able to carry on the surprise for a while. I've never been good at surprises. I always want to share my excitement. How nice to be able to spen the time with your parents. That will make the parks that much more fun!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Joining in! Love you Halloween costumes!

We have a similar trip currently planned for the Fall (San Diego and then up to Disneyland) with kids in the range of 6 down to 1 - so will be following closely to see how things go/any tips to learn

In San Diego we are actually going to do the San Diego Zoo Safari Park instead of the actual zoo ... it seemed neat and there is currently a livingsocial deal going on which made it much cheaper (just as an FYI)

 

[momtohms]

Your plans look great. I think that you're smart to avoid the parks on Memorial Day. One year my best friend I got there on President's Day. We figured that people would clear out early to go home. Ha! It was insane! The only thing we rode was the Monorail into Disneyland from DTD. We walked out by the front gate and back through DTD. We didn't even attempt to get back on the Monorail to go back. Busy, busy, busy!

I hope that you're able to carry on the surprise for a while. I've never been good at surprises. I always want to share my excitement. How nice to be able to spen the time with your parents. That will make the parks that much more fun!

Thanks! Even if the crowds weren't horrible, with us flying in overnight it's best to have a down day first. We fly red eye flights often to Seattle, the girls are great travelers (I flew alone with them on a red eye last summer and 2/3 were asleep before we reached cruising altitude) but they typically need a day or so to adjust and get some extra rest. DH and I especially since we don't get nearly as much sleep!

I hope it'll take them a bit to figure it out too. They can definitely overlook the obvious at times. Recently they were watching a show in the late afternoon on the couch, my husband came home from work (our front door opens into the room they were sitting). They didn't even look up, so DH army crawled across the floor in front of the couch, then around the side and crawled up on the back of the couch and just laid across right behind them. He was up there a good 10 minutes, inches from the backs of their heads. They only realized it when I took a pic, and showed them.

So I'd say there's a fairly decent chance we can get them at least to CA while keeping it a surprise. I'm surprised that *I* haven't spoiled the surprise yet though, I thought for sure I'd slip up and mention it but so far so good, 2.5 weeks left *knock on wood*

 

[momtohms]

Joining in! Love you Halloween costumes!

We have a similar trip currently planned for the Fall (San Diego and then up to Disneyland) with kids in the range of 6 down to 1 - so will be following closely to see how things go/any tips to learn

In San Diego we are actually going to do the San Diego Zoo Safari Park instead of the actual zoo ... it seemed neat and there is currently a livingsocial deal going on which made it much cheaper (just as an FYI)

Yay! Welcome and thanks! It was the first year we did a family costume theme, it might be our only year but we'll see. I have a few other ideas but the girls are also pretty opinionated too. Haha!

I hope I'm able to give some good tips/info! This is our first family trip that isn't to visit and stay with family so it will certainly be a learning experience for us. These boards have been a great source of info though.

I'll definitely look into the Safari Park option, especially with a Living Social deal! Thanks for the heads up

ETA: I just noticed the dates of your DL trip from your PTR. I'm already planning our next trip to be around that same week in a couple of years. Since my oldest DD and youngest DD will celebrate their birthday at DL on this trip, it's pretty much a given that we have to go back in October on our next trip for middle DD's birthday. I'll definitely be following yours as well!

 

[momtohms]

I can't believe we are just over a week away!

These came in the mail yesterday:


My girls have all sorts of Disney store princess dresses, and I debated picking out one or two each to bring. But they just take up a ton of space, get glitter on everything, and my kids are all on the shorter side so many of the dresses still drag on the ground. It made more sense to just leave them all home, especially since I'd probably pack the wrong one or someone's would get ripped or (insert reason why my young daughter is emotional here) ;-) However, knowing that two of the girls had birthdays and I was planning BBB appointments, I wanted something they could wear on that day. Cue the Etsy search! I found these dresses pretty quickly and fell in love. They are knee length, have an adjustable bodice to grow with them, and the craftmanship is amazing. They are lined with a soft cotton, the material is sturdy, and the details are simple but very well done. I picked the dresses inspired by each of my girls' favorite princess and I can not wait to give these to them.

The Etsy seller is KnottedWear if you want to check her store out! I highly recommend!

I have a few other outfits I've put together to share. I've had a lot of fun putting together an outfit for each day, sometimes matching and sometimes based around a favorite princess or character, and I even got fun dresses for our San Diego Zoo day too. I'll put together pics of those and update again later!

 

[kaoden39]

Those dresses are adorable and they won't be hot like they might be in the other dresses. Plus they are easily recognizable as to which Princess they are.

 

[momtohms]

Those dresses are adorable and they won't be hot like they might be in the other dresses. Plus they are easily recognizable as to which Princess they are.

Thanks! The thinner straps and shorter length should definitely help if the weather is extra warm that day

 

[kaoden39]

I went and looked at their shop, the prices are good too. I have a friend that has girls and I'm going to tell her about it.

 

[momtohms]

I went and looked at their shop, the prices are good too. I have a friend that has girls and I'm going to tell her about it.

Make sure she knows to check out the shop notes for any promos too! I bought mine when she had a 15% off deal going and she also offers a discount on multiple dresses too (there are listings for pick 2, 3, 4, etc. dresses). I ended up paying just under $40 for each dress (including shipping) so I saved around $10 each. Not too bad! It took about 5 weeks to get them, would've been less if the USPS in North Carolina didn't hold them hostage for 4 days

 

[kaoden39]

Make sure she knows to check out the shop notes for any promos too! I bought mine when she had a 15% off deal going and she also offers a discount on multiple dresses too (there are listings for pick 2, 3, 4, etc. dresses). I ended up paying just under $40 for each dress (including shipping) so I saved around $10 each. Not too bad! It took about 5 weeks to get them, would've been less if the USPS in North Carolina didn't hold them hostage for 4 days

Oh wow that's a great deal! Thank you I will tell her!

 

[tanyaegangibson]

My parents are also staying there and we're hoping to have adjoining rooms.

You probably already know this, but just in case... The DLR hotels consider "adjoining" rooms to be ones next to each other, NOT ones that share an interior door. To have rooms that are actually attached by an interior door, you need to request "connecting" rooms. (I learned this the hard way the first time we went with our in-laws. We eventually were given new rooms after we realized that no door existed between the rooms we were assigned, but moving the luggage, etc. was kind of a bummer on the first day when the kids just wanted to head to the parks.)

 

[momtohms]

You probably already know this, but just in case... The DLR hotels consider "adjoining" rooms to be ones next to each other, NOT ones that share an interior door. To have rooms that are actually attached by an interior door, you need to request "connecting" rooms. (I learned this the hard way the first time we went with our in-laws. We eventually were given new rooms after we realized that no door existed between the rooms we were assigned, but moving the luggage, etc. was kind of a bummer on the first day when the kids just wanted to head to the parks.)

Yes! Connecting rooms is what I meant When I set up our reservation over the phone I made sure to clarify that there would be a door between the two rooms. They couldn't guarantee we would get them, but hopefully it works out Thanks for pointing that out though so I can use the right term at check in!