Camo Commandoes (World's shortest PTR--Now a TR) Update 10/3

[Hawleys]

DW and I leave tomorrow for our much anticipated final Year of a Million Trips trip. We've had Deluxe APs since August 09 and this will be our fourth trip to DLR.

Goals: Experience every attraction at DL and DCA over our year of APs
Take in World of Color
Relax and enjoy each others company

Over our previous three trips we've experienced many attractions but we haven't hit them all. New highlights for this trip will include Princess Fantasy Faire, Davy Crockett Canoes, Columbia Sailing Ship and World of Color with Ariel's Grotto Dining Package.

We tend toward a commando touring style and we utilize RideMax, MouseWaits and solid fastpass strategy to optimize our time. This trip will be a bit slower as I tore the meniscus in my knee (stupid knee!) over Memorial Day weekend. Fingers crossed that the swelling won't be too bad.

Hotel plans: We're staying at the Hojo on Thursday and Friday night. Only one of the those is at the Entertainment Rate but we'll take it. Saturday morning we will check out of the Hojo at some ungodly early hour and check in at the Grand Californian for one night. The switch will allow us to use two Magic Mornings (Sat. and Sun.), the special DCA entrance on Saturday and Sunday and the GIANT hot tub at the Mariposa pool. DW calls the hot tub "sports therapy for Disneyland commandoes". I'm looking forward to sliding down the Redwood slide at least once!

Dining: We've always brought our own food or done CS restaurants but I know that with the bum knee I'm going to need more resting time. We have reservations outside at Ariel's Grotto at 5:20pm on Friday, with WOC dining package. We also have 5:00pm reservations at Catal on Saturday because we have the free $30 birthday gift certificate offered by the Patina group. I also bought a $25 gift certificate for House of Blues for $2 from Restaurants.com. Not sure if we will actually eat at Catal and House of Blues but it's nice to know we have the option.

How to Find Us: If you're in the parks this weekend, you can look for our take on the Lime Green Mickey.
Camo Commandoes!!

 

[Belle Ella]

I'm on board! I can't believe you leave tomorrow! Have a great time and I hope you knee doesn't give you too much trouble. Ouchies!

 

[ginormous]

Reporting for duty!

 

[Karenann*]

Make it so, Captain!!! Have a great time.

 

[Hawleys]

I'm on board! I can't believe you leave tomorrow! Have a great time and I hope you knee doesn't give you too much trouble. Ouchies!

Thanks BE! Ibuprofen is my friend.

Reporting for duty!

Hey DW! If you're reading this, I'm getting on the train in 20 minutes.

Make it so, Captain!!! Have a great time.

Signing off for the weekend at DLR. See you on the flip side!!

 

[Belle Ella]

Reporting for duty!

Signing off for the weekend at DLR. See you on the flip side!!

Have a magical time!! Hope you both arrive safely and have lots of fun!!

 

[Hawleys]

Have a magical time!! Hope you both arrive safely and have lots of fun!!

Thanks for the good wishes. We're back and we had a wonderful time.

 

[Hawleys]

Before I start my full on trip report (and because I'm still organizing my pictures), I thought I'd drop in and give a few highlights and lowlights to whet your appetites for what's to come.

And, as a special bonus, this trip report may include some commentary from DW herself, ginormous.

Highlights:
World of Color--Just WOW. The dining package ended up being a great choice for us. Eating outside at Ariel's Grotto was lovely. We had Screamin' on one side and the Pixar Play Parade for about 15 minutes on the other. We also met another Diser, jodeja and her awesome kids at the restaurant. Food was decent and plentiful and the staff was extremely accommodating about DWs diet restrictions. The best part about dinner was that it came with lots of vegetables. Intake of green stuff is limited for us a DLR because we eat mostly counter service. This meal was a nice change. The show itself was stunning. I know it's cliche but I've never seen anything like it.

Riding Splash Mountain and GRR in succession before heading to the Grand Californian to change--We've always wanted to get soaking wet and then use the private entrance to the Grand to go change clothes. I rode in the very first seat of Splash Mountain for the very first time ever and I was soaked. Coming off the ride, it looked like I had taken a shower. Even my undies were wet! Seemed like a good time to use our GAD FPs for GRR and then head to the Grand for dry clothes.

Ranking 2 and 3 for the day on Buzz Lightyear--We rode Buzz Lightyear first thing during a Magic Morning in hopes of the elusive 1 and 2 ranking. Well, they don't call it elusive for nothing. We did manage to hit the hidden 50,000 point target.

Lowlights:
Knee pain--Ouchy ouchy ouchy. DLR is a ton of walking and my injured knee was sore and swollen for the whole trip. We did so much walking that my uninjured knee started a sympathy strike and swelled up too.

Volume--Why does everything at DLR have to be so darn loud? My working hypothesis is that everything is loud so that it can drown out all the other loud stuff, creating a vicious cycle of loudness. I can (and do) put my fingers in my ears on some of the most egregious offenders. Don't worry DLR, I can still hear all the dialogue just fine.

Lowlights aside, it was a wonderful trip and I'm looking forward to reliving it and sharing with all of you.

 

[Hawleys]

Howdy Folks!

After a long hiatus, I'm ready to pick up this trip report again. It's been a very busy summer with trips to Washington State and upstate New York. Labor Day seems like just the time to hunker down and start writing. So here goes, hope you all come along for the ride.

We left the Bay Area on a Thursday night Southwest flight out of Oakland. DW and I met up at her work building where we left our luggage for an hour or so while we went to eat hamburgers. (Shout out to True Burger in Oakland; their burgers rock!) After collecting our luggage, we trundled everything to the BART (subway) station and made our way to the airport. This trip involves transferring from the train to a bus and paying another three bucks but it's totally worth it. Generally, flights out of Oakland are $10-$20 cheaper than flights out of San Francisco and it takes an hour for us to get to SFO by train compared to 40 minutes to Oakland.

We whizzed through security where there was a line but it moved very quickly. Arriving at the gate, we discovered our plane was slightly delayed. Drat. Since we weren't planning on heading to the parks that night, this was no big deal and gave me some time to check the DIS for any last minute WOC information.

As the Southwest cattle call started, DW noticed a former co worker and his wife and kid lining up for the same flight. Guess where they were headed?!? Disneyland of course! They sat behind us on the flight and DW had an amazing time dropping some DLR knowledge. Fastpass tricks were imparted, WOC viewing strategies discussed and plans were made to meet up on Friday.

We touched down, said goodbye to our friends and headed out to the Supershuttle. As usual, it was a quick wait before our shuttle departed and we were the first folks dropped off, at the Hojo. Check in was smooth. Our request for a building 3 second floor room was honored. I've already given my reviews of the Hojo (check out the other TRs in my signature if you are interested). To sum up, I love love love the Hojo. The room was big, with two sinks (really important for two girls) and the all important skylights to make getting up early easy. We dumped our bags and went down to the gift shop to buy milk for the morning. DW played Civilization on her iPhone a bit until it was time to tuck in.

Up next: Friday at DLR with our friends and ... WOC!!!

 

[Belle Ella]

You're back! Glad to hear that it's been a busy summer keeping you away and not you know, bad things. Just a couple things off the top of my head:

- I think I really prefer OAK to SFO as far as Bay Area airports go. I don't think I've ever flown out of San Jose so I can't comment on that one, lol. But where I fly from (not that it matters for the girl who doesn't fly) always depends on where I can get the cheapest fare and it has ended up being SFO on occasion.

- How cool to run into acquaintances from the past and all headed to the same destination! I hope that you were able to meet up that Friday and it was a good time.

- I second the love, love, love for the HoJo!

 

[eargal]

I'm in!

 

[Hawleys]

You're back! Glad to hear that it's been a busy summer keeping you away and not you know, bad things. Just a couple things off the top of my head:

- I think I really prefer OAK to SFO as far as Bay Area airports go. I don't think I've ever flown out of San Jose so I can't comment on that one, lol. But where I fly from (not that it matters for the girl who doesn't fly) always depends on where I can get the cheapest fare and it has ended up being SFO on occasion.

- How cool to run into acquaintances from the past and all headed to the same destination! I hope that you were able to meet up that Friday and it was a good time.

- I second the love, love, love for the HoJo!

Hey Belle Ella! It has been an up and down summer keeping me away. We had a some wonderful vacation time with DWs family. And I had some serious blues about my hurt knee. My lovely Grammy passed away at 94, so bittersweet as we all miss her horribly but know that she wasn't living the way she wanted to either.

I totally agree about trying to find the cheapest flight. Usually works out to be Oakland for us. Because we don't have a car, flying out of San Jose is not really an option for us either. You can get there taking BART to Caltrain but it takes a looooooong time.

We did meet up with our friends on Friday and had an awesome time!! I don't want to spoil the TR though so that's all I will say for now.

Your trip is inching nearer. Can't wait to see your pictures.

 

[Hawleys]

I'm in!

Sweet! And Welcome.

 

[Hawleys]

Friday morning found us up early and raring to go. Disneyland opened at 9am because of a grad night on Thursday. The later start time meant we could sleep in and take our time getting ready. I'll admit that I primped a little bit because today the plan was to meet PRINCESSES! As I'm sure I've told you a million times, our goal on this trip was to experience all the attractions at DLR which we had yet to try. After much discussion between DW and I about what constitutes an attraction, we decided to let the Disneyland map be the final arbiter. If it was on the map under attractions, we were going to experience it. That meant that the PFF was a must do. To avoid waiting in enormous lines for the PFF, we decided to visit immediately at opening on Friday. Usually, the PFF opens one hour after the rest of the park but because of the late start, PFF opened at the same time as DL. We figured this gave us a great shot at being one of the first ones in line if we hustled.

Ok, back to our Friday morning. We had our traditional McDonald's breakfast of Egg McMuffins and milk. I tossed down a couple ibuprofen as well because I was tackling this trip with a torn meniscus in my knee. We noticed that McD was more crowded than usual. The line up at the gates was also more crowded than I expected for a Friday which made me a bit nervous about crowd levels. We also heard lots of people coming up to the entrance who were surprised that the park hadn't opened at eight am.

Once we were inside the gates, I limped off toward the PFF while DW participated in the Space Mountain Morning Marathon (thank you to the Diser who coined this phrase) to get FPs. There was just one family in front of me when I arrived at the PFF. A very nice CM let us all know that the princesses were still getting ready. I guess the royalty decided to primp that morning too. It was about 9:15am by the time the first family was sent down the gauntlet, I mean sent to meet the princesses.

Since both DW and I are pretty shy, this was going to be our first face character experience. We brought along some postcards for the princesses to sign so we would have something to talk about to break the ice.

The postcard on the right was for my four year old niece who was Snow White for Halloween last year. The postcard on the left was for our friend Ross who grew up very close to DLR and has visited with us in the past. Now that he has moved to NYC, we thought it would be cute to have the princesses sign and we could mail it to him.

The first princess was Ariel. She was sweet and chatted us up a little bit. When I showed her the postcards, I made the mistake of saying that one of them was for Prince Ross. Of course, she wanted to know if he belonged to one of us. Awkward silence. "Ummmm.....no". Ever cheerful and well-trained, Ariel clasped her hands together and gave us hope with this little gem. "Maybe someday." It was hard not to laugh. After that exchange, we took the fastest picture possible and high tailed it on to the next princess. To our surprise and relief, it was Princess Minnie. No talking, yea!!

I had expected three princesses but because it was so early there were only two. Truthfully, we didn't mind.

 

[Hawleys]

On our way out of the Princess Fantasy Faire, we were stopped by a CM to do a satisfaction survey. As two shy adults, we awarded PFF moderately high marks, mostly because we're scared to talk to the characters.

So after escaping from PFF with some relief, what do you think we did? Went to visit more face characters of course!! It was just about time for Pixie Hollow to open and as this attraction needed to be checked off our list, we decided to do all of our face character visiting at once, like swallowing a big spoonful of medicine.

Perhaps I'm being too negative. I get really excited at the *idea* of meeting the characters and getting some fun pictures. But when actually confronted with the opportunity, I find myself tongue-tied and awkward. Being GLBT definitely has something to do with this. I always wonder if the characters (who are mostly women) think it's weird that two married women are visiting them. Although if you take a look at my wife, you would immediately realize that the princesses and fairies are not my type at all.

Back to Pixie Hollow. While we had accidentally walked through Pixie Hollow trying to get from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland (ie by accident ), this was our first purposeful visit. The entrance is just lovely, especially the "jumping" fountain which periodically spurts small arcs of water over the walking path. As you proceed deeper into Pixie Hollow the foliage grows taller until it is completely over your head. Now you are fairy sized!

We visited with two fairies, Silvermist and Tinkerbell. Tinkerbells wee man fairy friend was there as well (Terrence?) but he left before our turn came. There was a darling little girl in front of us. I hope it's ok to post her picture; it doesn't show her face.

Character meeting and greeting complete (whew!), we wandered over to Tomorrowland for our inaugural space visit with Captain EO.

This show rocks! Quite literally, the floor bounces to the beat. Sweet! The setup for MJ and his motley crew of space creatures presenting the evil alien queen with the gift of music was mostly bad jokes and stiff acting. But the dance video that ends the show made it all worthwhile. MJ was a magnetic dancer and a true talent. Watching him was joyous.

That's all for today. More to come soon.