1st time back after 20 yr!

[VandVsmama]

Welcome! This trip was a quick 2-day visit to Disneyland with our family and my sister, who hadn't been to Disneyland in over 20 years. We had a WONDERFUL time! It was me, DH, ODD (11), YDD, (9), and my sister (Sis for short).

DAY 1 - TRAVEL DAY! Thurs 3/22:
We woke up excited and eager to hit the road. YDD was too excited to sleep and woke up at 5:17 am! The prior weekend, I'd injured my toe on my left foot by dropping a palo verde tree branch on it. It wasn't broken, just sore. And I had spent the past several days with my foot up and soaking it to help the swelling go down. By Thursday morning, it was much much better. Still sore, but at least I wasn't limping around as much as I had been earlier in the week. I was confident that everything would turn out ok for Disneyland. My sister had been joking with me earlier in the week that I should rent a scooter.

Our plan was to be on the road by ~ 8:30 am. But I had to make a quick run to the store for drinks and snacks. And I got bagels for all of us for breakfast, too. So we didn't actually get IN the car with everything packed and leaving until 9:30 am.

The drive was pretty much smooth sailing until we got just past Palm Springs. We stopped briefly in Quartzsite for fast food (driving from Phoenix). We ran into some rain just west of Palm Springs, but it wasn't that bad. Traffic started to get heavy once we got to the eastern borders of Ontario & Rancho Cucamonga.

Then finally shortly after 4 pm, we saw this sign and there was much squealing and delight in the car!

DH & the kids had to use the bathroom, so they quickly exited the car and I dealt with getting our bags stored away with Bell Services. I self-parked the car and then walked past 2 of my favorite statues.



Once inside, DH was finishing up with checking in. The CM gave us a "First Visit" button for Sis, but she hadn't arrived yet. We walked past this really great map of Disneyland. If you look closely, the water features are lit up!



I needed the ladies room, so I walked past this gorgeous artwork on the way there.


I just LOVE the lighting at the check in desk at the Disneyland Hotel!

 

[VandVsmama]

We had a room on the 12th floor of the Frontier Tower! We walked over to the Frontier Tower and YDD really loved the carpeting in the hallways. This pic is a little blurry, though!



My sister was treating for the room, so we were definitely very much spoiled over the 2 nights that we stayed here. Get ready for a ton of room pictures, people! This room was amazing! First, we saw this...that's DH & ODD admiring the view out the window. DH & I slept on the queen-sized pull out sofa. You guys...that was THE most comfortable pull out bed I've ever slept on. Seriously. It was wonderful. I slept like a baby on that bed.


And right when you enter the room, there's this wet bar area just to your right...



Here's what you can see out the window!

 

[VandVsmama]

And this, too!


And this....


There's the monorail pool!


And check it out...Davy Crockett Mickey in PLANTS!

 

[VandVsmama]

more room pics!

This is 1 of my favorite pictures...


The little details they put in the rooms at the Disneyland Hotel are just so wonderful!


Like this light fixture...


Or the sink faucet...


And the shower thingy...



AND TINKERBELL IS ON THE SOAP?!

 

[VandVsmama]

Sis and the kids slept in this part of the room...




We got settled in, unpacked a few things since Bell Services had delivered our luggage, and everybody was getting hungry, so we went downstairs and went to Earl of Sandwich for an early-ish dinner. We've never eaten at Earl of Sandwich before. We all thought it was ok. I don't feel like I've missed much by not going there until now. YDD had the pepperoni pizza bread thing off of the kids' menu. She hated it.


ODD had a sandwich, but I can't remember which one.



I had a Greek salad, but the dressing wasn't really much of a Greek dressing. It was sort of meh. DH had a salad, too, but I don't remember which one he got and I didn't take a picture of his food!


Between the 4 meals, 4 drinks, and some cookies we bought to take back to the room, I think we plunked down almost $75 on this meal. Overpriced for what you got. We should have gone to Tangaroa Terrace instead, I think!

 

[VandVsmama]

Back to the room!

On our way back to the room, we ran into 1 of the local residents. This cat was very sweet and was very tolerant of being petted. This made the kids' day seeing this.

The decorations in the downstairs lobby of the Frontier Tower are really neat, like this model!


This concept art is pretty neat, too!


Sis arrived at the hotel some time later (I don't remember which time, though). We commiserated about how everyone in southern California forgets how to drive in the rain, so generally speaking, people drive like maniacs in the rain. She rented a car and drove in from LAX. She was pretty tired from her international flight from London. She was hungry, so we stopped by Trader Sam's and us adults all ordered grow up drinks with souvenir mugs.


We tried the ahi poke, which was pretty good. I would have preferred it without the avocado on the bottom of it, but it was tasty nonetheless. And we tried the kalua pork flatbread pizza. That was good, too.

Here's what that amazing headboard looks like when it's all lit up!


I also took a picture of the desk. Here's what the mirror looks like...

 

[VandVsmama]

I'd been actively watching the weather reports all week. Thankfully, it looked like it was NOT going to rain on Friday in Anaheim!



Here's what that awesome pool looked like at night!


We got to see the fireworks from our room! You turned the TV on to a particular channel and it plays the fireworks music, too.




After fireworks, we all hit the hay and went to sleep!

 

[VandVsmama]

Friday 3/24:

We had EMH at DCA on Friday, so we were up pretty early. I ordered room service as a treat...oh boy was that expensive. But we enjoyed it and the food was tasty. We got to DCA just a couple of minutes after 7:00 am, which I thought was pretty good for herding 5 people out the door so early in the day. We all had Max Pass so I got us all a FP for RSR shortly after 7:00 am and yes, it was handing out FP before regular park opening! People were lined up at the RSR FP machines, but the machines were not handing out FP. I thought, "SCORE!"



Until....we got to the entrance to Carsland and CMs were telling people that RSR and Luigi's were down because of the rain. It wasn't raining at THAT moment, but it had been drizzling in the wee hours of the morning. CMs said that RSR would probably be back online around 12:30 pm. And that was the case. It didn't come back on until 12:30!

So we rode Mater's with literally a walk on. I got handed the coveted red card!


Mater's is a really fun ride and we always laugh our fool heads off on it. Sis rode it with the kids and DH & I rode together.


After Mater's, we kind of took stock of what we wanted to do at that point. Hm, what to do? My entire RideMax plan for the morning was a bust due to the rain. oh well, we'll improvise! So we decided to go on Soarin'. Sis really liked how the Grizzly Peak area really does look like you're entering a national park.




Here's the queue/waiting area. The wait wasn't that bad. About 10 min during EMH, probably due to the fact that so many rides traditionally open during EMH were down because of weather or offline because of Paradise Pier construction.

 

[VandVsmama]

Sis declared Soarin' a fabulous ride. She gave it 2 thumbs up. Her words were "WOW! That was amazing! I really enjoyed that!"

So what to do now? TSMM was closed until 9:30 am. No Luigi's or RSR. Bleh. Ok, let's go on Monsters, Inc. That's always fun. So off to Hollywood Land we went. Sis did not quite understand why I took a picture of the garbage can. "Because it's Monsters, Inc themed!"





There was NO wait. Literally a walk on.


Get your Drooler Cooler here!


Monsters, Inc was fun. We enjoyed that ride. Was RSR online yet? Or Luigi's? No. Our FPs had automatically converted to "multiexperience any time" FPs, but we wanted to use them on RSR. And there was nothing else at DCA which we wanted to see then.

But it was maybe 8:15-8:30 am. What should we do? This is why park hopper tickets are so useful at DL, even on a 2-day trip. We hopped over to DL! First ride was on the fire truck, which I have ALWAYS wanted to go on, but we never got to! The CM was great. He gave the kids stickers. As you can see from the picture, it was SO busy that morning. Haha!


View from on board the fire truck....

 

[VandVsmama]

Once we got to the end of the line, we saw the gorgeous trees in bloom! The weather was pleasant that morning. But even though it was in the low 60's, I was sweating. Why? Well, because back home in Arizona, it was something like 10% humidity and here it was a lot more humid than that!


We took some really great photopass pics in front of the castle, even got a couple of magic shots, too. Then walked across the bridge and through the castle into Fantasyland! Right now, this pic is the wallpaper on my phone.


Our first ride in Fantasyland was the Matterhorn. It had ~ a 5 min wait. DH sat this one out. He went and got a coffee. He hates the Matterhorn. Freaks him out because he hates drops and he hates stuff that jumps out at him (although he loves Indiana Jones). The Clapping Man was at the Matterhorn, too! We saw him do his special handshake with the CMs. When he got off the ride, I shouted out, "Good morning, Peter!" and he gave me a big smile and a wave. Then the CMs let him go on it a 2nd time in a row without having to wait. He's awesome. That's 3 trips in a row now that we've seen him!




Then after the Matterhorn, we found DH and all 5 of us walked onto the Mad Tea Party. WALKED ON! NO WAIT! THIS IS WHY WE GET UP SO EARLY AT DISNEYLAND, PEOPLE!

 

[VandVsmama]

At this point in the morning, I'm limping. Well, the limping started earlier in the day, but now it was getting a little worse. I was taking ibuprofen every 6 hr. And I was taking antibiotics because when the tree branch fell on my toe (don't do yard work in your flip flops!), it broke the skin, so I had received a tetanus shot and an antibiotics prescription to be on the safe side. I checked the DL app and BTMRR (Fast Choo Choo) was only 5-10 min wait, so we went on that next. It really was only 5 min. DH was good sport and he went on this with us. The kids & Sis rode together and we got the front car!



Part of the queue at BTMRR.....


More ride queue...


Almost time to get on board!


We're up next!



Sis loved BTMRR. Reminded her of the days way back when we went on it with our dad.

 

[VandVsmama]

So then I checked the DL app again and dang it! RSR was still offline. Should we get a FP for something? We all discussed it and the answer was no...we wanted Sis to get on RSR for sure that day, so let's do something else. How about Pirates of the Caribbean? 5 min wait? YES! Now I was REALLY limping. My toe was really hurting now. The rest of my family walked ahead while I caught up and we rode Pirates, but I didn't get any photos because we were all "in the moment." Sis and I reminisced about all the times when we were younger that we went on it with our parents and how the ride reminded us of our mom (who died ~ 7 yr ago from cancer).

After Pirates, we all wanted to rest. So we followed DH over to the Mint Julep Bar and DH got some Mickey beignets for us to share. The kids are nuts and they hate these. That's fine...more for DH, Sis and me! Here's a photo of 1...


While resting at the Mint Julep Bar, we discussed again what to do next. Ride Max was out the window and we were winging it all morning. Thank goodness for the DL app because that thing is so great! Kids wanted to go on Autopia with Sis, but nobody wanted to walk that far. That's ok, let's get on the train and ride it to Tomorrowland! This is the 1st time we went on the train since it reopened some time last summer. I think the Imagineers did a great job on this...




Then we got off the train in Tomorrowland and I limped over to Autopia. This was about a 10 minute wait. ODD rode with Sis and YDD rode with me. DH got his own car.





After going on Autopia, everyone was starting to get a little hungry and it was soon time for lunch. I didn't feel like walking back down Main Street since my foot was really hurting at this point, so we got back on the fire truck and rode back down Main Street and the kids got another fire truck sticker from the awesome CM!


As you can see, the weather was really beautiful that day.


It was starting to get a little busier on Main Street, but still not too bad...

 

[VandVsmama]

Since the purpose of this trip was for Sis to enjoy the Food & Wine festival at DCA, we hopped back over to DCA. Or...I hobbled over to DCA. Haha! DH went with Sis around to a bunch of the food booths while I took the kids to Flo's V-8 Café for ribs & milk shakes. I don't have ANY pics of the food & wine festival food! :-( I ordered the turkey dip sandwich with pasta salad.



The kids both had the ribs platter. YDD only eats the ribs. ODD likes the ribs and the mashed potatoes. She was extra hungry, so she had YDD's mashed potatoes, too. None of us are coleslaw fans, so nobody ate that.



Oh look! There's a palo verde tree...just like the 1 back home that landed on my foot the week before! HAHAHA!



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[VandVsmama]

One thing I learned on this trip is that although DH really enjoys listening to Spotify or Pandora on his phone while we're at DL, when he does that, he doesn't seem to get the text messages or phone calls that I send him. Either that or he ignores them because he's not paying attention...which I totally understand when you're in DL and you're "in the moment!" But when you're trying to coordinate meeting up with each other at a certain time, it drives me a little bonkers.

The kids & I were done with lunch at Flo's and still no word from DH or Sis, despite me texting both of them. I let them know that RSR wasn't quite online yet, but it soon would be according to the CMs, so "please hurry up!" I texted to them. I wanted to avoid a gigantic FP return line. While the kids and I waited for them, we went on Luigi's and had maybe a 5 minute wait. The morning in terms of ride wait times was wonderful. 5-10 min for everything we went on. What I just love about Disneyland & DCA in the mornings is the lower crowds and lower wait times on attractions. Plus, you can take family pictures easily without everybody and their brother photobombing you in the background. No family pics will be posted here, though, to protect the innocent!

Here are some fun pics from Luigi's, though! You know what's neat about DL? The little things. Like that decorative metal work on the top of the fence.


Here's a close up...


1 more iteration of the ride and we'll be getting on!



Check it out...even the planters look like tires!


We're up next!

 

[VandVsmama]

The girls wanted to ride together, so I got to ride solo. They got a blue car...


I love the flags and lights on this ride. It looks really pretty lit up at night.


The rock work in the back is cool looking!


We really enjoy going on Luigi's and we try to ride it every time we're in DCA. I'm glad that DL has always included rides which non-roller coaster people can enjoy. That's 1 of the things that I've always disliked about Magic Mountain...there's not much to do there if you're not into thrill rides.

 

[VandVsmama]

Ok, so now that the kids & I were had gotten off of Luigi's, we made a pit stop at the bathroom and then sat on a bench near Luigi's and waited for DH & Sis to return from their Food & Wine Festival booth-hopping lunch. Now it's 12:30 pm and RSR just opened and I could see a line developing. DH responded back (finally!) to my text msg that they were done and headed our way. A few min later, they showed up. DH & Sis both really enjoyed the Food & Wine options...a couple were just ok, but the overall consensus was that it was enjoyable and Sis wanted to eat there for lunch again the next day so she could try everything else. Great! That was music to my ears! My theme-park-hating sister was enjoying herself! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

My foot was now almost in agony and I couldn't wait to go back to our hotel room for that coveted afternoon break. OMG, I was so glad that day that we were not rope drop to close people. My foot was in so much pain that I was ready to cry, but I was holding it together for the benefit of my family and despite my pain, we were all having a really nice time together.

Here's my view from the bench the kids & I sat on while we waited for DH & Sis to return from lunch...


And I just love the Carsland homage to the Leaning Tower of Pisa...


You see that group of people standing just to the right of the yellow sign? That's the end of the RSR FP line. WHAT?! We were all kind of freaking out at this point...


But it appears that our fears were unfounded because the line was long since people were having difficulty figuring out how to scan their tickets for their FP return. Once we scanned our tickets, we got in the FP line, which was ~ 15-20 min from the time we entered to when we actually got on the ride because it broke down for a few minutes for some unknown reason. I love the themeing in the RSR queue!



Finally, we got in our car...a blue one. Sis and the kids were in the front seat with DH & I and a single rider in the back seat. We LOVE this ride. Seriously. Love it. It's so well done. My sister gave it the #2 spot right next to her #1 attraction, Soarin'.


After that, we were all pooped. We'd been at it since 7:00 am and it was about 1:30 pm by now. My foot was killing me. We all needed a break. When we left Carsland, holy cow, there were a LOT of people in the area around the food booths. And I don't know what it is about that Food & Wine Festival music, but my kids commented on how the music in that area just didn't feel very Disney.

So we left the park and made the long march back to the DLH. When we saw this, I cheered because it meant that we would soon be in our room and I could put my poor foot up to rest!


Well, we all had a glorious rest, I must say. DH & I both took naps. Sis took a nap. The kids did not. I took my shoes off to inspect my aching toe and oh my goodness, did it look angry. Very red, very swollen. I thought maybe it was a blister, so I used a blister bandaid on it the rest of the day, but that didn't do much good. My toe got much better overnight each night, but it would swell up again during the day. At this point, I was starting to think that maybe I tore a ligament or tendon or something. Sis thought it was infected. DH tried to make light of it and joked, "Oh, let's just do away with it and cut it off." It hurt SOOOO much, you guys!

Fast forward to the Monday after we returned home from the trip and after following doctor's orders to continue taking ibuprofen every 6 hr, to take a new antibiotic (and they gave me a shot in the butt, too, because they thought it was infected), and soaking my foot 4x/day, and this TWIG CAME OUT OF MY FOOT! THE TREE IMPALED MY FOOT AND LEFT PART OF IT EMBEDDED IN MY TOE, YOU GUYS! AND I WALKED FOR OVER 9 MILES IN DISNEYLAND ON FRIDAY WITH THIS STUCK INSIDE ME AT THE BASE OF MY TOE! No wonder it hurt so much! OMG!!!!!! The q-tip is for size comparison. Can I tell you how totally grossed out I was once this came out of my foot? I cannot describe how grossed out I was. The swelling almost immediately went down. My foot is just fine now. And no...little palo verde tree twigs do not show up on an X-ray.

 

[VandVsmama]

Ok, so back to Friday. After I'd taken a nap, I took the kids downstairs to the pool because they were desperate to swim. I had a nice view from the comfy chair I sat in. The kids would have spent the rest of the day in that pool. They didn't want to get out. But we had other plans for the evening. The weather was lovely that afternoon. Not too hot, not too cold. It was really nice and very relaxing just sitting there not doing anything.


This was the temp about 3-3:30 pm that day....


After I got the kids out of the pool and we got back up to the room, I begged DH to call downstairs to inquire about a scooter or wheelchair rental because I wasn't sure if I could walk on my own for the rest of the trip. He called downstairs and they said, "Oh yes! We have one right here that isn't reserved and you can come get it at the concierge desk." The concierge CM was a life saver. The DLH does keep wheelchairs and scooters there from Deckert's medical supply for hotel guests to use, but if you really need one and you know for sure ahead of time that you'll need one, you should reserve through Deckerts ahead of time. This is the best $74 I spent on that entire trip. Seriously. It saved my trip. Of course, I was mercilessly teased by Sis the entire time. I was past the point of caring. No pride and no shame. I have newfound respect for everyone who tours through the parks using a scooter all the time. You have to have your wits about you!

Nobody wanted to walk all the way back through DTD, so we took the monorail. And yes, you can take a scooter on the monorail!

 

[VandVsmama]

I must say...my family was really jealous of the scooter. At first, I was really embarrassed, but I soon didn't care because it meant that I wasn't going to be almost in tears for hours from the pain. And after seeing that 1.5-2" TREE BRANCH that CAME OUT OF MY FOOT, it's no wonder I was in agony! I can laugh about it now, but it wasn't very funny at the time.

While we were doing our afternoon break at the DLH, I did a trip pulse check with Sis. I asked her how did she think things were going, mentioned our general plans for the evening and for the following day, and asked her what she thought, were there any rides she wanted to go back and do a 2nd time, etc. She said that the morning had been great. She was surprised about how little we had to wait for each ride, was surprised at how it really wasn't too crowded despite being a week before Easter. She said that her favorite attraction so far was Soarin', thought that ride was very well done, and she would totally come back to go on that again. She loved the Food & Wine stuff and insisted that I try one of the wine slushies the following day. She also really loved Max Pass and thought that for $10/person, it was a total value. She enjoyed the photo pass pics that we were getting from it, including the Tinkerbell magic shot that we got in front of the castle. Her #1 favorite part of the trip so far was going on all the rides with her nieces. I thought that was pretty special, too. We're going to remember this trip for a very long time.

During our afternoon break, I got FP for the 5 of us to ride on Indiana Jones. Holy cow, walking through Adventureland has always been challenging but on a scooter? It felt like I was a salmon trying to swim upstream. ROFL. I parked the scooter in the stroller parking area and we got in the FP line for IJ. I think we waited 5 min. Really short. Max Pass was most definitely worth it.


After IJ, YDD said that she wanted to go on Jungle Cruise, but the line was too long, so I promised to take her on it later in the evening. Now it was time for dinner, so we went slowly over to the French Market. I found us a table and my favorite band in all of DL was playing! DH, ODD, & Sis went to go order. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the food. YDD had the pulled pork minus the bun (she hates bread except for sourdough bread). Can't remember what ODD had. I had the stew in a sourdough bread bowl. Can't remember what DH or Sis had! There is SO MUCH ATMOSPHERE in this location! Seriously, this is my #1 favorite place in in Disneyland.


After we had gone on IJ, I got FP for us to go on HM. Again using Max Pass. So we went on that next...


Picture of part of the HM queue... I love New Orleans Square at this time of day!


Now we're inside! Sis rode with the kids and DH & I got to share a Doom buggy together.

 

[VandVsmama]

After HM, I used Max Pass to get us FP for Star Tours...


Actually, I think that we had just scanned our HM FP and then I got a Star Tours FP while in line waiting to get on a doom buggy. Max Pass is really great. I would totally pay $40/day for the 4 of us on our next trip. It's very convenient and reduces a lot of back and forth. It was wonderful. So we got on Star Tours. Sis said it was just like she remembered it...so much fun! Sadly, none of us were picked as the rebel spy.






After Star Tours, I got us pretty much an immediate FP for Buzz Lightyear, so we went on that, but I don't have any photos from it! :-( As we were leaving Tomorrowland, somehow we ended up walking past the tea cups again. This is just so pretty at night time...


Then we went on...


This is 1 of YDD's favorite rides. Why? "Because, Mama, I like all of the grown up jokes that I don't understand yet." She cracks me up! For some reason, I never noticed this cool Adventureland sign before...

 

[VandVsmama]

Watch the gap before you get on the boat! I never get tired of this ride.


The kids were still going strong, but Sis was pretty darn tired, so she took off and went back to the hotel. Her body was still on London time and she'd been up since about 5 am that day. DH and the kids & I went on Pirates again..





After Pirates, we went into the Pandora store in NOS. ODD had been saving up ALL of her spending money all year in order to get something nice at DL on this trip. So she got her very first Pandora bracelet. We chipped in some, too. She got 2 cute charms to go with it. We're going to WDW this summer and I promised ODD that we will get her a new charm on every trip. We offered to get YDD one, too, but at 9 yr old, she declared that she hates jewelry and doesn't want any. After the Pandora stop was done, DH was pooped and he headed back to the hotel. The kids were hungry, so I took them to the ice cream shop on Main Street and we shared a couple of sundaes. YDD was fading fast at this point. I don't remember what time it was, though. On our next trip, I want to bring some $$ so we can play some of the games in the Penny Arcade.


The wood work in the ice cream shop is really pretty!


After the ice cream was consumed, the kids and I were really pooped, so we hoofed it (and I scootered it) to the monorail station in Tomorrowland and we monorail'd it back to DTD. Here's our train!


I know now that they can fit 2 scooters in 1 monorail car at the same time. I shared it with a grandmother from Sacramento. She had her grandson with her. But my kids remarked afterwards, "Hey, Mama, that lady was pretty dumb letting her grandson ride on the back of the scooter like that with her. That's really unsafe." Yes, kids, it is. Really unsafe and really stupid. The grandmother was very nice, though. We had a nice conversation during our monorail ride.


I let ODD & YDD take turns trying to get the scooter into the hotel room. Thankfully, they weren't noisy about it. Sis and DH were both sound asleep. I tucked the kids into bed and then hobbled into bed w/DH. It was a very long but wonderful day!

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