The Cast:
Me (26), DH (31), DS (5), DD (2). Here we are last October. It's sad how far back I have to go to find a picture of the 4 of us together.
When we decided that this was the year we could finally go back to Disneyland we were all so excited, especially ME! After much research I determined that May was a great time to go, financially for us, plus crowds at the park. My baby girl's 3rd birthday is the first week of May so we decided to schedule the trip around her special day instead of doing a party for her.
We've gone to Disneyland once before in June 2005. We were in California for my sister's wedding at Dana Point. We had a lot of family commitments but managed to squeeze in trips to Lego Land, Universal, and Disney.
We had never even heard of Lego Land before but saw a brochure in our hotel lobby and decided to go. We had a BLAST!! Our son wasn't quite two but was 34" which was just tall enough to ride a good amount of rides. Now my son is 5 and he still talks about the trip to Lego Land. And since he is Lego obsessed right now a trip to Lego Land is even higher on his list than Disney! We bought the Brickmaster Club membership and that gave us enough coupons to get a very good admission price.
Legoland:
We also went to Universal Studios that year leaving our son with my Dad to baby sit. That was a great choice because we were able to go on all the adult rides without switching off.
Our 05 Disney trip was funny. I had never been to Disney before (my family wasn't the vacationing type). DH had been once before as a kid but really didn't know much since it was so long ago. Via google I was able to find the Mousesavers website which recommends the HOJO. I booked there for the last three nights of our trip and we really enjoyed the location and the pool. Of course now the pool is even cooler so we are excited to experience that. Other than the hotel I didn't really do any research. We went to Disneyland at 8am and bought one day tickets to the park. We didn't even get the hoppers to to see DCA. Of course, had I done the research back then I would have known way much more but we were totally newbies. We went in the park in search of breakfast and saw a bunch of people lining up at the Plaza Inn. Hmm..that looked good so we got in line. When we were asked if we had ressies and we said no, we were turned away. Whoops! We ended up getting Mickey pancakes at River Belle Terrace and they were delish. The rest of our Disney day was fabulous. We bought the mouse ears and went on a bunch of rides. The first ride we did was POTC and it's a good thing we did that first. We ended up getting stuck on the ride and spent about 20 minutes in our boat and they closed the attraction for the rest of the day. We never did get to the IASW because the line was outrageous. We went back to the hotel to rest after the parade and then hit Disney again that evening. Doing the Haunted Mansion in the dark was so cool!
Like I said, that was my first trip to Disney and I really fell in love. Disney really is the Happiest Place on Earth!! Ever since then I have been trying my hardest to get back to Disney but there was always something holding us back. I even started planning a trip for last year 2008 but unfortunately had to cancel. I was upset for months after that!! My DH must have felt really bad because this year after a bunch of number crunching he decided we were in the right place to be able to go.
Since this is the first time back in years and my DD's first trip we want to try to pack in as much as possible. We are doing 8 days of Southern California, 3 of those days will be Disney. We are buying the City Pass from Costco. Our schedule is as follows:
May 1- fly from Honolulu to LAX. Drive down to San Diego. Check into our hotel- Best Western Island Palms (great rate on a suite with the Ent. card!)
May 2- Sea World
May 3 - San Diego Zoo
May 4 - Check out, drive to Anaheim stopping to sight see and go to Ikea along the way. Dinner with my best friend and her parents in Irvine.
May 5- DD's birthday!! Magic Morning and breakfast at the Plaza Inn. I wanted to do Ariel's Grotto for her bday but my best friend will be joining us that day and I don't know if she will have hopper tickets. I think we will all love the characters at the Plaza Inn.
May 6- Reservations at Bibbidy Bobbity Boutique for both the kids and Ariel's Grotto for lunch.
May 7- Lego Land!!
May 8- Friday and our last day at Disney. We chose to do our last day on a Friday because the park will have longer hours.
May 9- Check out of HOJO, spend the day at Universal, check into hotel by LAX.
May 10- Fly home
Flight and rental car have been paid for. All 3 hotels have been booked. City Passes have been purchased. We're really going!!!!
Now I have 6 weeks left to make t shirts, autograph books, and figure out our Disney touring plans. I am really enjoying the planning process and this board has been a valuable source of information. So a big THANK YOU! to all the members on the board and I can't wait to update later with our trip report.
Me (26), DH (31), DS (5), DD (2). Here we are last October. It's sad how far back I have to go to find a picture of the 4 of us together.
When we decided that this was the year we could finally go back to Disneyland we were all so excited, especially ME! After much research I determined that May was a great time to go, financially for us, plus crowds at the park. My baby girl's 3rd birthday is the first week of May so we decided to schedule the trip around her special day instead of doing a party for her.
We've gone to Disneyland once before in June 2005. We were in California for my sister's wedding at Dana Point. We had a lot of family commitments but managed to squeeze in trips to Lego Land, Universal, and Disney.
We had never even heard of Lego Land before but saw a brochure in our hotel lobby and decided to go. We had a BLAST!! Our son wasn't quite two but was 34" which was just tall enough to ride a good amount of rides. Now my son is 5 and he still talks about the trip to Lego Land. And since he is Lego obsessed right now a trip to Lego Land is even higher on his list than Disney! We bought the Brickmaster Club membership and that gave us enough coupons to get a very good admission price.
Legoland:
We also went to Universal Studios that year leaving our son with my Dad to baby sit. That was a great choice because we were able to go on all the adult rides without switching off.
Our 05 Disney trip was funny. I had never been to Disney before (my family wasn't the vacationing type). DH had been once before as a kid but really didn't know much since it was so long ago. Via google I was able to find the Mousesavers website which recommends the HOJO. I booked there for the last three nights of our trip and we really enjoyed the location and the pool. Of course now the pool is even cooler so we are excited to experience that. Other than the hotel I didn't really do any research. We went to Disneyland at 8am and bought one day tickets to the park. We didn't even get the hoppers to to see DCA. Of course, had I done the research back then I would have known way much more but we were totally newbies. We went in the park in search of breakfast and saw a bunch of people lining up at the Plaza Inn. Hmm..that looked good so we got in line. When we were asked if we had ressies and we said no, we were turned away. Whoops! We ended up getting Mickey pancakes at River Belle Terrace and they were delish. The rest of our Disney day was fabulous. We bought the mouse ears and went on a bunch of rides. The first ride we did was POTC and it's a good thing we did that first. We ended up getting stuck on the ride and spent about 20 minutes in our boat and they closed the attraction for the rest of the day. We never did get to the IASW because the line was outrageous. We went back to the hotel to rest after the parade and then hit Disney again that evening. Doing the Haunted Mansion in the dark was so cool!
Like I said, that was my first trip to Disney and I really fell in love. Disney really is the Happiest Place on Earth!! Ever since then I have been trying my hardest to get back to Disney but there was always something holding us back. I even started planning a trip for last year 2008 but unfortunately had to cancel. I was upset for months after that!! My DH must have felt really bad because this year after a bunch of number crunching he decided we were in the right place to be able to go.
Since this is the first time back in years and my DD's first trip we want to try to pack in as much as possible. We are doing 8 days of Southern California, 3 of those days will be Disney. We are buying the City Pass from Costco. Our schedule is as follows:
May 1- fly from Honolulu to LAX. Drive down to San Diego. Check into our hotel- Best Western Island Palms (great rate on a suite with the Ent. card!)
May 2- Sea World
May 3 - San Diego Zoo
May 4 - Check out, drive to Anaheim stopping to sight see and go to Ikea along the way. Dinner with my best friend and her parents in Irvine.
May 5- DD's birthday!! Magic Morning and breakfast at the Plaza Inn. I wanted to do Ariel's Grotto for her bday but my best friend will be joining us that day and I don't know if she will have hopper tickets. I think we will all love the characters at the Plaza Inn.
May 6- Reservations at Bibbidy Bobbity Boutique for both the kids and Ariel's Grotto for lunch.
May 7- Lego Land!!
May 8- Friday and our last day at Disney. We chose to do our last day on a Friday because the park will have longer hours.
May 9- Check out of HOJO, spend the day at Universal, check into hotel by LAX.
May 10- Fly home
Flight and rental car have been paid for. All 3 hotels have been booked. City Passes have been purchased. We're really going!!!!
Now I have 6 weeks left to make t shirts, autograph books, and figure out our Disney touring plans. I am really enjoying the planning process and this board has been a valuable source of information. So a big THANK YOU! to all the members on the board and I can't wait to update later with our trip report.
It didn't really make sense traffic wise and everything to go to 
