Annual December Family DLR Trips (08, 09, 10, 11 IN PROGRESS)-We do it big

[DLR29]

Hooray! I enjoy your Trip Reports. Have fun!

Thanks for reading! What a surprise I found to have a couple readers!

You did an amazing amount of things in one day. Can't wait to see what your group accomplishes in 2. Is DC5 ready to do bigger rides this year?

I sure hope he is. Maybe we'll at least convince him to ride King Arthur's Carousel this time! We're also hoping to drag him....I mean encourage him onto Big Thunder because it's a train. He also, apparently, like IMAX movies, so we're crossing our fingers for Soarin. You never know.

Now DC3 (now DC4) will be going on everything that he is tall enough for (pretty much everything except Indy, Screamin and Maliboomer), which will be exciting. He'll have a blast on Space, Splash, Matterhorn, etc.

 

[DLR29]

Right...so JUST when you think you have everything planned perfectly....

My mom got an email from my grandpa saying that my cousins who live in So Cal will only be joining us for 1 day, no more questions/trying to get them to come, end of story. Fantastic!..... (oops, hahaha funny side note, when I went to type "Fantastic" I accidentally typed "Fantasmic" )

Anyway, I'm not sure then if my grandparents will stay both days either. This also makes planning a sure heck of a lot harder when 1/2 of the party has 1 day tickets and the other half has 2 day tickets.

This probably means that we won't be park hopping at all (omg I know ) on the first day, which means we'll try and see as much of DCA as we can on the second.

This means Pixar Play Parade AND Electric Light Parade on the second day. So Christmas Fantasy on the first day and maybe Fantasmic (hehe). Oh goodness gracious. Only 2 more weeks until I'm at the Happiest Place on Earth!

 

[DLR29]

Ok, some things got a little clearer. Here are our finalized plans:

Monday 12/21:
-Drive from here to Anaheim. We got a room for another night at Worldmark for just our family, so we're driving straight to Worldmark on the first night instead of spending the night at my grandparent's house.
-This extra night will also allow us to buy everyone's ART passes early
-Dinner with my brother's friends perhaps? Fire and Ice??

Tuesday 12/22:
-Grandparents, cousins, aunt/uncle and cousins will all drive down (about a 45 min drive) and meet us at Worldmark. Everyone will store their stuff in our room and we'll take ART over to the parks.
-All 13 of us will tour the parks all day. We are getting our cousins 1 day park hoppers, which makes planning much easier. Everyone else will be getting 2 day park hoppers. Actually, they came in the mail the other day. So we'll be park hopping a little. I'm excited because, other than my family, the rest of our party hasn't really set foot in DCA a lot (my aunt/uncle and younger cousins have never been in there), which will be a fun, new experience for them.
-Sometime in the afternoon we will leave to go check-in to the other rooms for my grandparents/aunt uncle younger cousins.
-Eat dinner as a large family at Gardenwalk somewhere
-My grandpa and maybe my mom will drive my older cousins back to their house sometime after dinner.
-Head back to the parks for Electric Parade/Fantasmic maybe
-The 10 of us will head back to Worldmark to sleep (actually the younger cousins, grandma, and my aunt might head out before Fantasmic)

Wednesday 12/23:
-So now it's my family, aunt/uncle and younger cousins, and grandparents
-Get up early for Fantasyland. If some people want to sleep in, great...but I know I'm gonna be up early with my younger cousins riding Peter Pan!
-Tour the parks all day. Focus more on the younger cousins like Flik's Fun Fair, Pixar Play Parade, Fantasyland, Cars meet and greet (they are going to LOVE this)
-Leave for grandparent's house sometime at night after fireworks.


I'm sooper excited!!! AND...we're doing our SINGLE DIGIT DANCE today!!!!

 

[DLR29]

Yay! School's out for winter break! Now it's only 3 days until DLR!!!!

 

[DLR29]

LIVE UPDATE:

I'm here at Worldmark! Going to the Gardenwalk for dinner and then the rooftop jacuzzi for the fireworks.

 

[DLR29]

Phew....

Just got to grandma's house last night after 2 long days at DLR! I slept for a solid 11 hours last night cause I was so tired. I have to wait until we get to our house to upload pics, so wait a little---I have like 300, so it'll be good. AND I figured out how to shoot better nighttime/indoor shots with my camera, so I've got some new cool shots.

The two days 12/22 and 12/23 were actually much more crowded than I thought they would be. Both So. Cal APs were blocked out, but not deluxe, so I thought crowds would be down. Nope. Indy's line got up to 135 min at one point. Space was about 70-80 for most of the time and overflow queues were used at MANY attractions (JC, Indy, IASWH, HMH, PotC, Peter Pan, etc.). But even with such long lines I think the longest line we waited in was 25 min or so for Screamin and TSMM.

Full report when I get back!

 

[deejdigsdis]

Yoo hoo...ready and waiting...

 

[DLR29]

Yoo hoo...ready and waiting...

Thanks for stopping in! I'm heading home in about a half hour. The first part of my report should be up by tonight!

 

[DLR29]

Ok, back home and all the pics are uploaded. I'm starting to type the first morning of our trip. I want to start on the 3rd page (for a long introduction/start of the TR it's easier), so I'm gonna start with our first night on this page and start our park adventures on the next one.

 

[DLR29]

Alright, so time to start another Photo TR. If you read my TR from last year’s trip then the characters are similar, but ages changed so here’s a new list of characters:

-Me
-DB (brother)
-DM (mom)
-DD (dad)
-DG&G (Grandma and Grandpa)
-DA&U (Aunt and Uncle from OR)
-DC6, 4 (cousins from OR)
-DC13, 11, 10 (cousins from So Cal)
-DB’s friends and friend’s parents (total of 5, 3 of his friends/2 parents)

Ok so let’s start on Monday, December 21st. Me and my family drove from our house to Anaheim and checked into a 2 bedroom condo/timeshare thing at Worldmark Anaheim.

Here’s a pic from the lobby:

Really nice place, but it’s a little far from the parks. We used ART (along with the rest of the hotel) but since everybody on our route seemed to come from Worldmark, we asked and they said that a shuttle for just Worldmark would be coming in the future. Good to know.

Here’s the living room area of our 2 bedroom place:

And the view of the pool from our room:

So it’s just our family the first night. Cousins from Oregon and the cousins from So Cal are both staying at my grandparent’s house for the night and they were gonna meet us at the parks the next day. But, Worldmark Anaheim is located, very conveniently, next to the relatively new Anaheim Gardenwalk.

My brother’s friends were staying at HoJo and going to the parks on the same dates as us, so we met his 3 friends and 2 of their dads at Fire and Ice at the AGW

For those of you who don’t know what Fire and Ice is, it’s incredible! It’s kinda like a Mongolian Grill where you put the stuff you want in a bowl and then they cook it on a big grill. But here you can get pastas, burgers, seafood, noodles, basically whatever you want. And it’s all you can eat for like $18. We’ve eaten at the ones in Boston and Lake Tahoe, so we already knew what to expect. It was delicious! Here’s a shot of the grill they use

After dinner we walked to the Cold Stone at the Park Vue Inn. Mmmmm ice cream. And then we trudged all the way back to Worldmark where the roof level has a designated fireworks viewing area. Way cool! Then we parted ways with my brother’s friends and we headed off to bed.

 

[DLR29]

Just a quick character list again:
-Me
-DB (brother)
-DM (mom)
-DD (dad)
-DG&G (Grandma and Grandpa)
-DA&U (Aunt and Uncle from OR)
-DC6, 4 (cousins from OR)
-DC13, 11, 10 (cousins from So Cal)
-DB’s friends and friend’s parents (total of 5, 3 of his friends/2 parents)

Morning of Tuesday, December 22, 2009:
Rise and shine! We got up early and got ready for a long day. We got a call from grandparents at around 7:45 saying that they were outside our place. They parked the cars, we got everything together and stood in line for the ART shuttle. We got picked up and, being the last stop on the line, we went directly to the parks. After getting off, walking through security, and entering the park, it was about 8:30-8:45. I grabbed all 13 tickets and got Space FPs. The ride already had an hour long line and FPs were for 11:00ish. It was then that I realized that it was going to be a VERY crowded 2 days.

I met everyone else at BLAB and we all rode together.

Hidden Mickey

I rode with grandpa

ZURG!

After that, we all headed to Toontown because it had just opened at 9.

Me, DA&U, and DC6 and 4 went to go see Mickey in his house, while the other 8 went to ride Roger Rabbit. The line was only a couple families long thankfully. Although we didn’t go into Minnie’s house this year, she was out meeting people.

Some shots from Mickey’s house.

Mickey has a busy morning

Pluto’s bed

DC6 watching some TV in Mickey’s House

The washroom

We all met up at Gadget’s Go Coaster. DC4 loved it last year, but DC6 didn’t want to go on anything fast last year. Well…same thing this year (for now ) so all of us kids except DC6 rode the coaster.

 

[DLR29]

Exiting the ride, we decided to hop as it was reaching 10:00AM. The long trek from Toontown to TSMM awaited us. To make it a little easier on the feet, we all hopped on the Omnibus and took it down Main Street. Me and DC11

Group shot of everyone except me and my parents (who were on the bottom level of the bus)

Disneyland flag at half mast for Roy

We made it to DCA eventually—even before rope drop. My grandparents and my DA&U, DC6/4 had not been to DCA ever. My DC13, 11, 10 had been, but not in a while. I ran and got Soarin FPs for everyone and met people by rope by the Sunshine Plaza. I thought it would be quicker to get to TSMM than around GRR, but I was sadly mistaken when some of the construction walls rerouted us around the wharf, and we were way behind the crowd from the other direction. Oh well, we still only waited about 25-30 min for the ride. Nobody except my family had ridden it before, and everybody had a blast. It was an instant favorite for almost everyone in our party.

DB and DC13, 11, 10

DC6 (the little ones are huge fans of the movie, so they loved the ride naturally)

DC6 and DU

Inside the ride. I love this shot.

When we exited, the line was already back on the bridge. Good thing we got there early. Up next was Screamin. The 2 younger ones and the grandparents rode King Triton’s twice. The rest of us only waited about 25 min for the ride. We also saw DB’s friends while we were in line. DC11 was freaking himself out. He had already ridden it before, but I guess he didn’t like it. He was almost crying as he strapped into the ride because he was scared of the launch. After the ride? He loved it. Of course…

The line was long and they were only running one side, but it moved very quickly.

Ok that’s where I’ll leave off for now. That was a lot of stuff for the first 2 ½ hours of our trip. Next up: An afternoon at the most crowded place on Earth!

 

[deejdigsdis]

Hooray! It's here at last!

Anyway, you got some great never-before-seen (by me) shots. Well done! Hearing about those crowds makes me cringe. We were quite spoiled when we went the week before Thanksgiving.

Glad your DC11 ended up liking Screamin'. It reminded me of my DS9 at the time last month when we were all strapped in, ready to go, and he said, "Mom...I changed my mind. I don't want to ride this one." Yeah, it was a little late to do anything about it. And of course he wanted to get right back on when it was over!

And thanks for including the picture of the flag honoring Roy. What a great picture to have!

 

[DLR29]

Afternoon of Tuesday, December 22, 2009: (have to split it up into 3 posts)

After Screamin, I ran and got ToT FPs. I met everyone at Soarin where we used the FPs from earlier. We were unsure of how DC6 was going to like it (remember from the last trip, he was the one who wouldn't ride King Arthur's Carousel because it went too high) because of his fear of heights. We told him it was just like watching a movie.

Strapping in

After the ride, he ended up loving it! My grandpa really liked it too! Another favorite of all of us. Since the younger two are HUGE (well mostly DC4, but DC6 too), HUGE Cars fans, they just could not resist meeting Mater and Lightning McQueen right there next to Soarin.

Hungry, we stopped for lunch at Taste Pilots. We pulled tables and chairs around to fit all 13 of us.

Now we needed to let our stomachs settle a bit before ToT so off we headed to Turtle Talk and the Animation Building. We got there just as a show was beginning, so we had some time to kill before the next show.

We checked out the Toy Story Zoetrope. I still love it however many times I've seen it. It's so cool! Then it was time to talk with Crush. It was crowded but we got really good seats because we were one of the first ones in the theater.

During the show, they called on DC11 to say something to Crush. Here's how the conversation went:
Crush: Can you swim [DC11]?
DC11: Yes
Crush: Can you swim fast?
DC11: Yes
Crush: Can you swim really fast?
DC11: Faster than you!

There was a chorus of "ohhhhhhh"'s in the theater. Crush had a hilarious blank stare on his face. Then he proceeded to swim around the entire world in a second to prove DC11 wrong. A really funny, unforgettable moment. We also played hide-and-seek with Crush later and Crush called out DC11 for peeking. Good times.

 

[DLR29]

Then DB, our older cousins, DU and I rode ToT with FPs (so we only used 6/13). Everyone had a great time, especially DU who had never ridden it before.

The others were exploring the downstairs of the Animation Building. We met up and decided to hop. Upon entering DL, I ran and got BTMRR FPs for later. Then we all rode Space Mountain with FPs except Grandma and DC6 (they rode Autopia instead). DC4 LOVED the ride so much. It's now his favorite ride at DLR! Of course, everybody else loved the ride too.
Actually, I had never EVER seen the line as long as it was when we rode. I've waited in a 60 min line for Space, but this was at least 90+ min. Yay for FP (we got on in 15)!

Since there were 11 of us riding, we took up a whole rocket. But we said whoever sits alone gets the front. That would be DC11.

DB and DC10 with DM and others in the background.

DC6 and Grandma

Up next was a ride that all of us could do together--Jungle Cruise. This was the ride that DC6 was most excited about because he's all about animals. The line wasn't too bad, but Indy's line next door was taking up the overflow space on top of JC! Yikes. Anyway, we got a good skipper. She told lots of jokes that I've heard before, but at the end she was talking about a cannibal cafe and all of these jokes that were brand new to me! I love the JC!

Backside of water

 

[DLR29]

The next ride on our list was Pirates. The little ones last year didn't like it, so they sat out with their parents, while the rest of us rode. They went up in Tarzan's Treehouse. Anyway, the line was about 20 min. While in line, a parade of colorful people came by along with Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen. It was pretty entertaining. Never got to actually see the Jubillee because it was SO crowded by the Rivers of America, but it looked really well done.

Pirates

As it was approaching late afternoon, we hopped on one last ride before dinner: BTMRR. We tried to convince DC6 to ride, but he still refused. He and Grandma went on the Mark Twain and explored Frontierland. The rest of us had a blast (especially DC4) on the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness!

We then were leaving for dinner. I grabbed HMH FPs on the way out. We also had to check into another room for DA&U and DG&G, who were spending the night at Worldmark with us.

Even though it was crowded, during the late morning/afternoon, we used 4 sets of FPs (Soarin-skipped a 40 min wait, ToT-skipped 30+, Space-skipped 90+, BTMRR-skipped 45+), which helps a ton, AND we rode some high capacity rides too (PotC, JC).

Up next: Dinner for 18 and 2 nighttime spectaculars!

 

[DLR29]

Evening of Tuesday, December 22, 2009:
ART dropped us off at Worldmark. Since everyone had stored their stuff in our room, we went up to the room, changed, and got ready for dinner/the evening. We also checked into the other room. So DA&U with the younger ones were going to take over the 2bdrm that my family had had the previous night, and our family/DG&G were going to take the "Presidential Suite" (we had no idea what that meant until later). So after transferring all of our stuff to our new room, we realized how amazing this "Presidential Suite" really is. 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a huge kitchen area and 2 dining rooms, all complete with an amazing view of the parks. Here are a couple pictures of the place. The entrance.

The living room/kitchen/dining room

ONE of the nice bedrooms

We were like ! Too bad we only had this suite for 1 night. I think I could actually get lost in that place. It was definitely bigger than our house. So even though we would have loved to have stayed in that room for the rest of the night....wait, who am I kidding, there was still DISNEYLAND! We went downstairs and met everyone for dinner at CPK. And by everyone, I mean all 18 people. For such a large party though, they were very quick to get the pizzas out. Here's one big shot of everybody.

We had reservations at 6 and we were on ART again by 7:30. We returned to DCA. Since we had only used 6 ToT FPs earlier, we decided to use the rest now. It was the same people as last time (me, DB, DC13, 11, 10), but instead of DU, DA rode with us. She also had a blast, as did the rest of us.

Library

Meanwhile, the rest of our party was staking out seats for the Electrical Parade. It was supposed to start at 8:45, but tonight was special and it was starting at 9, which they didn't advertise at all. They also extended the park hours until 10 because of crowds. One CM's explanation for the delayed parade time was that there were so many people at DL waiting for the fireworks that if the parade ended right before 9:25, there would be entirely too many people over at DL, causing some fire hazard. But, it was so windy that the fireworks were cancelled that night anyway. Well, we sat right by Sunshine Plaza, front row.

Then the parade began. I hadn't seen it in a few years, so I was excited. The music for this is so great! I have lots of parade shots.

I really like this picture

 

[DLR29]

After the parade, the little ones were getting tired. They went back to Worldmark for the night along with DA&U and grandma. Grandpa and DD drove DC13, 11, 10 home. So that left me, DB, and DM. We all are basically in love with TSMM, and since the park hours had been extended, we went down to the pier to check out the line. As we were walking down, they were testing some mist screens for WoC. Very cool

The pier at night

Here was the line at 9:40.

We got on in 10 min. 10! It was fantastic! Then we booked over to DL for the 10:30 Fantasmic! DB's friends had seats on the ground, so he joined them. But DM and I tried the Light Tower Trick. It worked amazingly! But my mom was unsure that it would work. We had great views of the show (one of my all time favorites). And it was the first time seeing the dragon for us. WOW! What a cool dragon! So huge and it's movements are so lifelike. Love it! They even had Princess Tiana in the finale on the Mark Twain.

After Fantasmic, the three of us ended the day with a ride on HMH with FPs.

Then we left, concluding the first day. Overall, we rode about 15 attractions, saw DEP and Fantasmic, used 6 sets of FP and were in the parks for about 13 hours total.

Up Next: Baby steps for DC6

 

[deejdigsdis]

Whoa! Get a load of that Presidential Suite! How fun.

I especially like the Electrical Parade shots. I have good memories of that parade on Main Street from decades gone by.

 

[DLR29]

Whoa! Get a load of that Presidential Suite! How fun.

I especially like the Electrical Parade shots. I have good memories of that parade on Main Street from decades gone by.

Yes, the Presidential suite was a nice surprise. I hope you're following with all of the characters. Thanks for reading again! I've been trying to post the next morning, but TWICE (ugh) I accidentally clicked wrong buttons and it's erased everything that I've typed (stupid me for not saving it on a word doc). But this time I'm going to get it right.

Morning of Wednesday December 23, 2009:
We woke up in the suite to this view

DG&G are early risers, so they were ready to go early. DB and I stuffed down a couple of muffins and were also ready. DM and DD were a little slower, plus they were going to make sure everything was packed and ready to go, so they were going to meet us later. DG&G, DB and I met up with DA&U and DC6, 4 down at the ART stop. It came relatively quickly and we were on our way to the parks. We entered the park at exactly 8:00AM, but there were already a lot of people in the park. I ran and got Indy FPs (since I didn't have DM or DD's tickets, I could only get 8).

Then I met the rest of the party at Peter Pan. It was a grand total of 7 min after 8 and Peter Pan's line was already almost full! But fortunately, it they were running really quickly so the wait was only about 20 min. Classic favorite of everybody.

Hook

Then we headed over to Dumbo on our tour around Fantasyland. Surprisingly, we only had to wait one round before boarding. I guess everyone was over at Peter Pan (although we did see a long line for Dumbo later). If you read my report last year, you'll remember that DC6 loved the ride but would not go any higher than ground level. This year he loved it even more because we went up high! Amazing what a year can do.

POV

View of Fantasyland from the top of Dumbo