A Year of Bday Trips!!

pixiewings71

<marquee><font color=deeppink>Sweet!!! Totally!!!!
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
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So I've decided it's time to make the plunge and do a trip report....or ten. LOL I should have started this thread right after returning in Jan but I slacked and 6 months later I'm finally doing it. LOL I hope I can remember most of the details from our previous trips but I'm not sure how I'll do. I guess I can always edit and make changes as I remember things. :) So Sherry, Courtney, Jasmine, you asked for it ladies, here it comes....LOL

Jan 3-8 for DBF's bday trip. We got vouchers from DBF's family for Christmas, they all chipped in and got us Costco Deluxe AP vouchers. I had been saving for a surprise trip for DBF for about 5 weeks before I found out about the gifts his family was giving us, that cleared up some $$$ for pin buying! LOL So I started getting pins to trade. I made arrangements with DBF's work for him to have the time off, his co-workers all thought it was really neat that I was surprising him with a DL trip and they all helped keep the secret. I did finally tell him around the 31st of Dec, we had to think about packing after all. :) We left on the 3rd, just the 2 of us, the girls were staying home because they had school and that was too much time to miss. My oldest DD's BFF stayed in our house with the girls and the dogs and they had as much fun as we did while we were gone. :) DBF and I drove to Anaheim and checked into the Crowne Plaza, we were staying as a guest of our timeshare so our stay at the CP was FREE! :) We got all checked in and headed to the parks, it was late when we got there but there was enough time to ride Indy, Buzz and Big Thunder and just wander around soaking it up. We hadn't been to DL in about 5 months and that felt like forever to us. See, we had APs from July 07-July 08 and we went about 14 times in that 12 month period so we were missing our DL!! :) When the park closed we jumped on our shuttle and went back to our room, slept like babies and then went to our timeshare presentation that next morning. Spent our 90 min. and then left, headed to the parks where we proceeded to have the BEST time. Nothing was rushed, we did what we wanted when we wanted and it was so different from being there with the girls. When they are with us they usually run the show so this was a big change for us. We left early and had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, YUMMY!!!! DBF had a steam pot, I had something else but can't remember what now. lol Monday we had to switch hotels, for some reason checking out took forever and we got to DL late. We had to switch hotels because the CP was only free for 2 nights, then I booked us into the Peacock on our timeshare points and we spent the rest of our stay there. So, we checked out of the CP but left the car in the CP lot (they said it was OK) and took the shuttle to the parks. Spent a nice day there and took a taxi back to the CP to get the van. We drove to the Peacock and checked in, got to our room and called home. Everyone was fine and having a great time with Ashlee so DBF and I just hung out and watched movies. The Peacock has DVD players and flat screens in the Shell rooms so that was nice, I had brought a bunch of movies from home to watch so we did that and just relaxed. Tuesday we walked to the parks, wasn't a bad walk at all in the morning but at night we were tired and we took a taxi back to the hotel. LOL Tuesday we just had another do whatever we want day, I don't remember the details unfortunately but we had fun. Wed was DBF's bday, we got him the Fun Card and a bday button and went to BB for lunch. That was fun and good!!! He had the Monte Cristo and I had the Tesoro Island Chicken, then we had a cookie boat for dessert, along with the chocolate mousse he got for his bday. :) Another long day of walking around doing what we wanted and him shopping, he finally got himself a nice Jack sweatshirt and then we bought a few things for the girls as well. We also decided to add parking to my AP so we took care of that, actually we may have added parking on Tuesday, it's been a while so it's hard to remember. :) Wed night back to the hotel for some downtime and then Thursday came and it was our last day. We drove to the parking structure and took the tram for the first time EVER!!! That was kinda neat. :) Did a few more rides and headed home around 1 pm. That was that for his bday trip, we had a great time without the kids but we also missed them.

Our next trip was Feb 6-9, we took off work early on Friday and left as soon as the girls were out of school. Got to Anaheim late and checked into the Peacock (we had a lot of points to use this year, use them or lose them, well we used them!) and headed to the parks to get the girls APs activated. Did that and headed into DL for a quick ride, I think we did Indy. It's one of our faves. :) We left and headed back to the hotel. Hit they hay late only to be woken up by the neighbors from HE double hockeysticks the next morning!!! OMG these people were outrageous!!! YELLING and SCREAMING at each other, fighting and arguing, slamming doors...it was redonkulous!!!! Finally after 2 hours of listening to them DBF got up and banged on the wall between our rooms, we heard one of the kids yell "IT WASN'T ME" but they didn't quiet down at all!! We complained to the front desk, they said they would talk to them about the noise. We went to the parks and had a great day, we were pretty tired because we'd been woken up so early but it was still fun. Headed back to the room and went to bed after midnight.....the next morning the SAME thing with the neighbors!!!! We complained AGAIN to the front desk, nothing changed. We got up and went to the parks, again had a great time but man, we were tired. Left before closing and went to bed!! That was Sunday, Monday rolls around and they were loud yet again. We were not happy!! We had asked the front desk staff on Sunday if we could be moved to another room "nothing is available" is what we were told so we had to deal with these rude people yet again. We checked out, the front desk staff asked how our stay was and we complained, they apologized and that was it. We were not happy with our hotel stay that trip!! We went to the parks for a few hours on Monday, upgraded our Deluxe APs to PREMIUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :thumbsup2:woohoo: See we had decided we were going to come back the following weekend for President's Day, why not? They kids had no school, DBF and I had no work, why not? On the way home we let the girls each call 1 friend and invite them to DL with us, to our surprise both girls were allowed to come with us. :)

Feb 14-16 we headed back to the parks. We left early in the morning on Saturday and I drove us halfway there, then DBF drove the rest of the way. Well actually I drove a little more than half because I drove to Lost Hills, but that's OK but he usually does it all himself. Got to the parks and had some fun, left in the afternoon to check in to the hotel. We went w/the Castle Inn because we needed room for 6 and I'd always wanted to stay there. Well, we will NEVER go back, in the future we will get 2 rooms w/connecting doors or something. That hotel was TERRIBLE!!!! We had 6 people on our ressie, they gave us 4 towels! We asked for more over the phone and we were told "we will see what we can do", DD12 asked a question about WiFi and the staff on the phone snapped at her so rudely! I could hear her thru the phone yelling at my DD!! I let it slide but I shouldn't have.....we rested in the room for a while and then loaded up the kids and headed back to the parks, spent the rest of the night there and came back tired!! The bed was OK but it was cold (it rained most of the weekend) so the next morning on our way out we stopped at the front desk and asked for more towels and an extra blanket, again we were told "we will see what we can do" I let them know they didn't give us enough towels for the people in our room and they hemmed and hawed and again said "we will see what we can do". We went off to the parks and had a good day, came back to the room halfway thru our stay because the kids wanted to swim. OK, even tho it's FREEZING cold we will swim. lol Well, they swam, I sat on a chair and froze. :) DBF went to ask for towels in the office yet again because there were NO "extra" towels brought to the room and the pool had NO towels either!! Geez, what's with the towels and this hotel?? So they gave him 2 towels from the office and promised they would come to the pool within 30 minutes with more. So we waited and the kids swam, after about 40 min we went back to the room, with only 2 towels so the girls were sharing 2 per towel. We walked past a maid cart on our way to our room and we grabbed some extra towels ourselves!! The girls all took showers and we got dressed and went back to the parks, stopped at Denny's for dinner on the way. Denny's was great, good food and great prices! :) That was Sunday. Monday we checked out, went back to the parks for a few hours before we left and found out the Grapevine was CLOSED!!!!!!!!!!!! We had to drive the long way and that took forEVER!! We didn't get home until after midnight, we felt so bad because we had planned to be home by 9 but with the Grapevine being closed and all the traffic in the area it took us so much longer. :( We all had fun but we were so ready to be done driving, it took us like 10 hours to get home, it usually takes 6.

I think I'll stop here because this thread is long.....
 
On to March, the next trip was March 6-9. Again DBF and I left work early and we hit the road right after the girls were out of school.

Oh wait, before I forget. In Feb my oldest DD21 was due with her first baby, we were worried she'd go early and we'd have to miss it because of our DL trips but she didn't. My first granddaughter was born Sunday the 22nd, DD called me on the 21st and said she had been admitted because her water broke so we started the trek to Idaho where she lives. She lives in Fruitland which is about 45 min. from Boise. DD was having the baby at St Luke's in Boise so we drove to my sister's in Kuna and stayed there. We were there until the 25th and it was amazing!!!!! I'm a Gma, still hard to believe but so worth it because she's so beautiful and amazing. :)

Anyway, the 6-9th of March. Weather was good, crowds were good, hotel was OK. We were at the Peacock this time on our points, the room was OK but the bathroom was dirty. Oh but first, they were overbooked so they put us into a really nice suite that had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms!!! We wanted to stay in it the whole trip but they wouldn't let us. :( So we had a wonderful long weekend with low crowds and decent weather, it got cold at night but it was nice during the day. Nothing really stands out about this trip but I remember we were tired. We spent all of Feb. traveling so we were exhausted. Oh ya, now I remember....I had to take DBF to the airport, his Mom's 60th bday was the following week and his Dad made it clear he was expected to be at her party Saturday night, no matter what!!!! We would have cancelled but we would have lost our points so we didn't want to do that, instead DBF flew back to Oakland Saturday afternoon, then the girls wanted to swim so the 3 of us went back to the hotel and did that. After swimming we went back to DL, it was weird being a party of 3 but still fun. :) The next morning (sunday) DBF flew back and we were supposed to pick him up, but his plane was about 30 min early so we weren't even dressed when he landed! LOL He took a shuttle to the hotel instead and then we did breakfast and headed to the parks, had a good Sunday and then Monday checked out and headed home after a few hours at the parks yet again. We were ready for a break tho!! But by the time a month had passed we were ready to go back, so we did for a quick weekend trip in April.

April 25 & 26th, we got up early the 25th and drove down. Went to the parks first thing and then left to check into our hotel around 3. this time it was the Days Inn on Ball Rd, got there and they didn't have our reservation!!!!!!! They let me use their computer and pull up our ressie (which I had saved thank goodness!!) but they didn't have a room w/2 queens so they upgraded us to a room w/3 queens instead!! the girls wanted to swim so I took them to the pool while DBF slept, I gave them 30 min because I wanted a nap too! lol They got more like 45 before we went back to the room but that was OK. I napped and they showered, after my nap we went back to DL. We had dinner at RFC and rode the monorail back into the parks. Stayed until closing and then went to the room and crashed. Got up the next morning and went back to the parks, we stayed a little later because it was such a short trip for us. We left this time around 4 I think. Got home later but had a little more Disney time. A nice trip overall. :)

Next trip was my bday trip, May 23-26. It was crowded like crazy and I'll do that report tomorrow....LOL It's gonna be a long one!! :)
 
Wow, so many B-day trips. APs are amazing aren't they? Not having to deal with buying tickets every trip. But it sounds like you've had your fair share of hotel problems. Oh well, it sounds like your time in the parks has been very enjoyable. That's the magic of DLR. :wizard:
 
YYYYYYYAYYYYYYY!!! Finally!!! A TR!!!!!! :woohoo: :yay: :lovestruc

BUT..... I'm going to read it tomorrow morning. :rotfl: I'm going to bed and I just saw your post that you finally made a TR!!! So tomorrow this will be read! I'm surprised you remembered all that! Crazy lady! :rolleyes1 :banana:

I looooovee you, Kerri! :hug:
 

Well the plan was to just do 4 trips for bdays this year....obviously THAT plan flew out the window! LOL

I love tooooooooooooo Courtney! LOL
 
You are so lucky to be able to go so often. I'm jealous. When you live in Arizona, it is not very practical to go for just the weekend.
 
geez Kerri, I didn't even realize you had a TR!!! Goodness sake you've been to DLR a lot!!! I shouldn't complain though because I have too:laughing:!! Great TRs!! I really wanna try Joe's Crab Shack because I always see commercials for it on the Food Network. They've got me so curious!
 
Wow! I don't think that I saw that Kerri had a TR either until Jasmine just bumped it up now! When did that sneak in?:rotfl2:

I knew Kerri had made a lot of DLR trips recently, but somehow seeing them all laid out in a TR makes me realize she went more than I realized!

I can't get enough of the Food Network! I think I have also seen Joe's Crab Shack mentioned on there.
 
Naomi, PM me with your email and I'll send you BBB pics. :) We had so much fun there! :) And I've totally dropped the ball, we've been back a few times since I started this report.....LOL I knew this would happen. I can't update more tonight but I will try tomorrow night. :)

And yes, I'm very lucky to have been so much this year, very very lucky. :)
 
Naomi, PM me with your email and I'll send you BBB pics. :) We had so much fun there! :) And I've totally dropped the ball, we've been back a few times since I started this report.....LOL I knew this would happen. I can't update more tonight but I will try tomorrow night. :)

And yes, I'm very lucky to have been so much this year, very very lucky. :)
Will you send me pics too? brookies_mommy@hotmail.com :)
 




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