A year of Disneyland!

[KerBear]

Hi all, I just renewed my AP, upgraded to a premium this year, and fully intend to document all of the fun I am going to have this year!

First a little background, My name is Kerry, I am a single mom to my two girls who are 20 and 15, and a new grandma to an adorable little girl who is 3 months old. I grew up in Seattle, went to Disneyland once when I was 10, although I remember very little and don't have any pictures which makes me sad. It was a one day stop on our way to Texas to visit family.

So, In the summer of 2008 the whole family migrated to California. My oldest daughter had spent some time here with her Aunt and wanted to come back, my youngest daughters dad lives here and wanted her to live closer, and I was tired of rain and gray skies.

I bought dd15 and I AP's in May of 2009 and we have enjoyed them, I more than her, but I have learned to enjoy my solo trips and when she joins me it is a bonus! But this year I want to do more, make more trips, record more memories, take my granddaughter and enjoy all of the firsts with her that I could never afford to do with my girls as a single mom! So this is my promise to myself to keep track of my days, take more pictures and then share with you all here since I really enjoy reading all of your trip reports!

I will be back to post my first solo day trip in the morning!

 

[chickyann]

 

[KerBear]

Ok, here it is, trip number one!

Originally the plan was that my youngest daughter Bri and I were going to go, but she bailed on me, so I was on my own. I left the house around 9 am, arriving in DTD about 10:30. I had my Give a day voucher to use as the down payment for my new PAP so I proceeded to the ticket booth. I got my single day ticket and took it to the AP processing center in California Adventure. No line at all and I was upgraded in about 10 minutes!

I decided to head to GRR first, but on my way stopped to jump in the single rider line for Soarin’. Wait and ride time had me out in about 25 minutes and I headed up the hill to cool off at GRR. Again the single rider line was open so I was through the line in about 5 minutes.

As a side note, I was moving pretty slow today. I have arthritis and use a cane at Disneyland, and anywhere else I have to walk more than ½ mile or so, so even though I was zipping through the lines it was already after noon. Since I was right by the GCH exit to DTD, and the car was still in DTD I decided to move it to the parking garage now, so I walked to the car, moved to the garage, and walked back to DTD.

It was lunch time, so I decided to try something new and stopped at Tortilla Joes for Tacos. They were good, and so stuffed with meat and toppings I couldn’t finish the two that came in my meal. I washed those down with a Coconut Horchata, I would have preferred a beer, but wasn’t willing to spend eight bucks on one!

So now it was time to hit Disneyland, first stop Matterhorn. On the way I saw Pluto on Main Street, and Max and Goofy near the flagpole, then Timon and a penguin near the Hub. Unfortunately Matterhorn was down, so I headed for New Orleans Square. Walking along Big Thunder Trail there were even more characters! Woody and Jesse were there, and so was Pocahontas and the Beast. As I was walking through Pocahontas left her “spot” and was walking along, stopping to chat along the way, right before the riverboats there was a little girl sitting with her family on a bench and Pocahontas walked over and sat down next to her and just started talking to her, it was so cute! I think this is the most characters I have seen out at once, and many of them I had never seen in the parks before.

I rode Pirates, Haunted Mansion, then back to Matterhorn which was back up by now, then Peter Pan. I was headed down main street to go back to DCA, but just happened upon the flag retreat getting ready to start, so I stopped to watch and really enjoyed it.

I was hoping for a ride on TSMM, so headed to Paradise Pier. I stopped for a Softserve cone on the way. In case anyone was wondering, walking with a cane while licking an ice cream cone that is melting is NOT easy! I got my high score today, 160,300. Not great, but I had never gotten over 130,000 so I was pleased!

As I was leaving TSMM half an hour later there was an announcement that celebrity mixologist Hayden Wood had a presentation starting at 6:30, so I decided to stop by the big tent and see if there were any seats left. I was directed to a stanby line, and I figured I didn’t have much of a chance of getting in but it was only a short wait, so I stuck around. Sure enough once the main line was all seated there were spots left and since I was all by myself I got one of them! Yay!! He made some chicken sausage, which was good, then demonstrated some pretty cool moves while making cocktails, which we did not get to sample. It was an unexpected bonus, especially since the Food and Wine Festival ended the next day.

I wasn’t really ready to head home yet, but I was pretty sore so I started slowly making my way toward my car. I stopped along the way to pick up some Caramel Apples and a postcard to send my niece and nephew who will be here to visit me and Mickey Mouse in June.

No pictures today, I forgot to grab the camera when I moved the car and it was just too far to go back for it, but I will definitely have more pictures in my future reports!

 

[KerBear]

Gosh, I read that last trip report and between the cane and the grandkid I'm feeling a bit ancient. I'm really not, Iam only 36! So, I thought I would introduce the family between trips.

Here is me on my birthday last July

And here are my girls and my step granddaughter

And my granddaughter

No Disney pictures for her yet, she is only 3 months old.

Now, I have a 2 day trip to plan for the end of this month. I don't usually do a whole lot of planning, we just go with an idea of some stuff we might want to do, but my sister, nephew, niece, and mom are all going to be here for a week from Washington.

We will be there Sunday the 27th and Monday the 28th. We are staying at the Holiday Inn on Manchester. It's a little far, but we will have our cars so will manage a little wasted time for the $$ we saved!

So far all I have is the WOC picnic lunch/seating purchased for Monday night. I am pretty sure my nephew (10) will want to do Jedi Training again, he loved it last year. I also want them to see Aladdin.

So, what else?