Day 1
September 8, 2009
It is now officially time for me to get this trip report underway! If you're willing to stick with me for this one it will be more of the same. Probably a lot of me babbling, but always with a ton of photos to go along with the words. Hopefully everything will stay fresh in my mind for some time to come, because this one is going to take some time to finish. At least I was somewhat smart (S.M.R.T.) this time and took a few notes of what we did each day!
Where, oh where, should I begin?
I'm pretty sure we can do a quick gloss over of the drive. It was long. It was dark. It was rather boring. And boohoo for us, we hit traffic in L.A. this time because (a) I was driving more like a normal human being and not like a bat out of
H-E-double-hockey-sticks and (b) we left a little later than we did back in March. How did we keep ourselves awake this time? We sang songs of course! No more "Man Song" since I couldn't find the CD in time to add it to my library. But we did start up a road trip classic - "99 Bottles of Beer". I think our voices are thankful that we didn't just start back over once we hit zero.
No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer
Go to the store and buy some more, 99 bottles of beer on the wall
Now that I think about it, we should have changed it to "99 Mint Juleps" or something to get us more in the mood for Disneyland, but what can you do, right? The worst part is that we recorded it on the Flip camcorder from about 87 on downward. But I think I'll spare you that nightmare
We left home at 2:30 a.m. practically on the dot and we finally reached our destination of choice, the Howard Johnson (HoJo for those who still don't know the acronym), by roughly 8:30 a.m. which is still good time for the drive, I guess. We had booked the first 4 nights of our stay with the completely awesome Entertainment Rate at $57 a night! I doubt this trip would have been the same without it since money would have been a little tighter. Splitting a room between 2 people for under $300 is a lot better and easier on the bank account than if the room was more than $500. It just meant more money to play with - and play we would do! There's not much more I can say about the HoJo that hasn't been reiterated about 1000 times before here on the DIS. The rooms were clean and comfortable, the staff was friendly and helpful as ever, and it was all around a great experience. Heck, our room was even ready for us when we checked in and that is always a plus. We were in building 3 on the first floor facing the courtyard. I can't say we had to deal with any outside noise although whoever was in the room above us sure loved to stomp around at all hours of the day!
Once we got our luggage into the room and certain valuables locked away it was off we were to the esplanade (which I still have trouble saying) and to the Parks! It felt like it has been forever since the last time I got to speed walk along Harbor - because I am not one for taking a leisurely stroll anywhere, especially with so much pent up excitement!! It was even exciting to see the
D23 Expo banners that were up along Harbor, even though we wouldn't be attending. For me, time in the Parks takes precedent over all else.
I got to the park gates a little before 9:30 a.m. (both Disneyland and California Adventure were scheduled to open at 10 a.m. but it was also a Magic Morning) and lined up with the regular entry folks. The plan was to meet up with my partner in crime at our first usual haunt - the Jungle Cruise. But since I was there in time for the 9:30 a.m. rush onto Main Street to wait for the rope drop at 10 a.m. I made a quick pit stop by City Hall to take care of a little business that I like to call
picking up my birthday badge! OK, so technically my birthday was still a couple of days away but the whole reason I booked this trip was to celebrate my birthday the whole time I was there, not just on the 10th. So as far as I was concerned that birthday badge would be somewhere on my person all day, every day. Where's the fun in only wearing it for one day?!
By the time I was done getting the buttons (and I do mean plural because Dre needed her own
I'm Celebrating button) it was minutes to rope drop which gave us just about an hour and a half before our PS at Blue Bayou for lunch. I met up with her right outside the entrance to the Jungle Cruise for our first Disneyland ride of September 2009! It's not our 100% favorite ride by any means, but it's just become tradition to get on the first boat out that we could while the jokes are fresh for the day - even though we've heard them all before! We also got our first taste of how the lines would be pretty much all week. The wait time was listed at 5 minutes, but in reality we just walked right on. It became a pattern rather quickly for any ride that wasn't Indiana Jones.
By no means was this my all time favorite experience on the Jungle Cruise, but it was just as fun regardless. I don't know about you, but I love hearing the jokes over and over and over, and it will stay in my top 5 Disneyland rides for some time to come. I wont even say these were that great as far as photos go. It took me some time to get rolling with my camera this time, but it's not like I wouldn't be back. In the meantime, we had a couple of more stops to make before lunch!
On our way into New Orleans Square we had to stop for a quick moment before almost running to the Haunted Mansion in excitement to show our support for the Jambalaya Jazz Band. I wish we could have stayed to listen to them play for a little while longer but we wanted to make sure we had time to get both the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean in before checking in for lunch! But we did stop and get pictures with the band. They loved my birthday badge
Instead of having them write Jessica I had them put my nickname, Jazz, on my button. Let's just say it was remembered all around over the course of our 5 days in the Parks.
Day 1 to be continued ...
Now if only I could stop having Disneyland vacation nightmares!!
Then somehow I forgot all of my luggage, another dream was all of my money, and in yet another we somehow lost our car and were stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I knew this would be a possibility but I choose Disneyland over an exam any day of the week. But at least he pushed back the due date on our second assignment until the Monday I get back which gives me plenty of time to complete it, even if it means no feedback on my progress since it was only assigned today. Symmetrical designs, nothing too tricky.
cool1: and I just can't hide it - I'm about to loose control and I think I like it). We're trying to get the last minute planning out of the way. Getting a few snacks we want on the drive there, planning out a few things we know we want to do for sure each day, yada, yada, yada!
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