sand2270
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2008
- Messages
- 2,976
I am pretty new to the boards, but have been pouring over them in anticipation of our Disneyland trip last week and our planned trip to Disney World in May 2009. After reading many of the trip reports I decided to post mine (mainly cause I think I am boring my friends and family with the details, but feel that readers on this site will appreciate it more 
) .
The trip was a very last minute idea. My last Disneyland trip was the week after Christmas 2006. Actually that is not accurate, I did go to DisneySea when I was in Tokyo May 2007 so that counts. Either way, I haven’t had any recent plans to return until this past February when I attended a conference hosted at the Disney World Beach Club resort. I didn’t go into any of the parks this time, though it killed me walking past the Magic Kingdom on my way to the hotel bus from my spa treatment at the Grand Floridian. I fell in love with the Beach Club Resort. This was the first time I had ever stayed on the property and except for a day trip to Epcot one year, this was really my first time at the Disney World resort. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I got home and started planning a DisneyWorld trip for next year for me and my daughter.
But that wasn’t enough, I decided to change some tentative vacation plans for me and my daughter later this year and go to Disneyland for her Spring Break instead. My boyfriend was going to be working in Long Beach the same week, so bonus was we got to stay in his hotel room for no cost.
I think I realized I might be more excited than my DD8 when one morning trying to get out the door for work/school a few days before we were leaving I got sidetracked with Disney planning details. I started asking my DD “Do you want to take you mouseears? Do you want to take your TinkerBell wand?” She brought me back to reality when she asked “Can we talk about this later?” LOL.
DAY 1 Sunday March 16th
Sunday morning, March 16th, we woke up at 5am with a plan to leave Tucson by 6am. Due to my daughter confusing the shampoo and conditioner in the shower, it took me about 20 minutes to untangle her hair, so needless to say we hit the road a little later than planned. Thank goodness the coffee place by my house opens at 6am, I was able to get my coffee fix and some bagels and we hit the road. The drive was uneventful. I forgot that the halfway point in Blythe is in California not Arizona, which was where I was planning on refueling. I ended up paying about a dollar more a gallon than if I had filled up in Quartzsite, AZ (I always make this mistake). We also usually stop in Palm Springs so I can take a break and we can eat, but my DD was sleeping and neither of us was very hungry so we just decided to push through and get ourselves to the hotel.
I ordered 5 day park tickets for the cost of 3 days. My boyfriend wasn’t arriving until Monday. To take advantage of the 5 day tickets I booked a room at the Fairfield Inn across the street for the first night. I have never stayed here before and overall we were both very satisfied with the hotel. They gave us a 6th floor room with a view of the park. It was too bad we didn’t have more than one night because it would have been a great location to view the fireworks. The room was within walking distance of the parks, clean, decorated with Mickey and Disney pictures, had free internet AND parking (both pluses to me) and a nice little market/Pizza Hut/Seattle’s Coffee marketplace.
View from hotel room
We headed over to the Disneyland Park around 2:30pm. First stop we always make each trip is to get DD a new autograph book and pen. She loves the penny press machines, so we collected all the spare pennies and quarters in the house and got her a penny book as well. My DD wanted to go on Indiana Jones first. Which surprised me since she has only been on it once and cried afterwards because she thought the big ball at the end I had warned her about was going to be the size of a beach ball. But she loves thrill rides and said she was just going to keep her head down when the ball showed up this time.
Considering it was the Sunday before Spring Break I expected the park to be much more crowded than it was. We got Fastpasses for Indiana Jones with a return time of around 4pm. I was surprised there were even any left at that time of the day if that tells you about the crowds that day. As soon as we grabbed the Fastpasses DD saw Jungle Cruise and wanted to go on. It had a 5 minute wait posted so we headed on. It was our first official Disney ride this trip and we were both giddy and excited. After the ride I realized I really needed some food. We got in line for Bengal BBQ. The line was long and slow, DD asked if she could run through Tarzan’s TreeHouse while I waited. We got a Mickey pretzel and a chicken skewer. I have been to Disneyland at least a dozen times and I have never had these skewers. My DD and I fell in love with them. I don’t remember the exact order of things, but we managed to hit Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in addition to using our FastPasses for Indiana Jones in a short amount of time. DD did great on Indiana Jones this time, she loved it and wanted to do it again but said she would keep her head up next time when the ball comes out (we never made it back on, too crowded later in the week). Again, there were no real waits for anything. DD had her heart set on Splash Mountain, but it was too cold and was one of the few rides with a long wait.
We stopped in the Pooh store and bought 3 of the trader character packs. There are different sets with 3 characters in each one but you don’t know what you are getting. They seemed fun so we got a Star Wars one for my boyfriend, I picked one that could have the Toy Story little green man (my favorite) and DD picked a holiday one. I didn’t get my little green man, but DD got 3 princesses…she made a great choice.
We made our way over to TomorrowLand to check out the line for Finding Nemo and Fastpass availability for Space Mountain. Both had long lines and SM I think was out of Fastpasses. We went on Autopia since the wait wasn’t bad. At this point we were getting hungry for dinner. When I asked DD what she wanted she said “More of that chicken”. We headed back to Bengal BBQ, hitting the Dole stand on the way. DD got a pineapple juice and I got a Dole Float (another first for me). We got 3 chicken skewers to split and I have to say it was one of the most satisfying meals I have ever had. My daughter, in love with this chicken, said she was “in chicken heaven”.
Chicken Heaven
I wanted to get out of that area before it started getting crowded for the first Fantasmic showing. We went to FantasyLand where I bought DD a sweatshirt. It was freezing and she needed something warmer to wear. Fantasyland wasn’t too busy, we went on Pinocchio and Snow White, than hit the Matterhorn one of my DD’s all time favorites. We walked back over to Nemo to see if the wait had lessened with people heading over to Fantasmic. Score…20 minute wait!! Overall I thought they did a nice job, my daughter loved the submarine.
Here I need to insert a small gripe. What is it with everyone right on top of you in the lines? I tend to leave a good 6 inches to a foot between me and the person in front of me. First because I need some personal space and second because I think it is rude to be right on top of someone and constantly bumping into them. Every line I was in the people behind me were right on top of me (adults and children) constantly hitting my backpack. I even had a little girl in the Finding Nemo line tap me when there was literally a gap of about a foot between me and the person in front of me and said to me “there is room”. I said “I know” and turned away (kind of mean I know, I was getting tired from the early morning). I finally had to resolve to get over it or else I knew I would lose my mind.
Back to the report. Taking a tip from the boards I decided that we would hit the 2nd Fantasmic show (again cause I like to avoid crowds if at all possible). One of the best tips from these boards was to board the train close to the end of the first Fantasmic show and take it to New Orleans Square. We got on the train in TomorrowLand and got to Main Street Station when the fireworks started. The fireworks were still going when we got off the train in New Orleans Square. We sat at a table at one of the restaurants to wait out the crowds. As soon as the fireworks were over (they were cut short due to the wind) people started leaving and we went and found a seat. We found a ledge we could sit on to the left of one of the elevated lightboards. I was worried that it wasn’t the best location but it seemed like a comfortable place to sit. This is when the best part of our trip happened.
We were there for about 10 or 15 minutes, eating popcorn and laughing, still just thrilled to be there. A cast member who was directing traffic came up to my DD and asked her name. After my DD told her she said “We have been looking for you all day!! Mickey told me to give you these beads!” She gave my DD the beads and my DD was very appreciative. My DD wanted her to sign her autograph book and Cameron, the cast member, happily signed her book. I also went over and asked if I could take her picture with my DD since it would make a nice memory. I could see her talking to other cast members, one of who was on a walkie talkie. She told us if we needed anything to ask her. Soon, she came back to us and told my DD she had something else for her and gave her a light up necklace. Than she started chatting us up, asking where we were from, how long we were staying, etc. She kept excusing herself to go back to the girl on the walkie talkie.
At this point I thought something was up. She finally came back and said “Would you like better seats?” and I said “Sure!” She said I am going to take you over to one of our priority areas. She took my DD’s hand and led us over to a roped off area right in the center of the viewing area. I asked her name, shook her hand and thanked her again for being so nice to my DD. They let us in this roped off area, we had to sit on the ground, but we were right in front of the water (about one level up). They let in about 2 other families, but otherwise the area was empty for the show. I have to say that this did not make some people happy, I heard more than one person asking why they couldn’t sit there when it was practically empty. I wondered this too to be honest, I had assumed it would fill up with other people they chose to sit there. Overall a great day. We were freezing and tired, but we had a wonderful first day.
Cast Member Cameron
To save space I will add a new post for each day...Day 2 coming soon.
) .The trip was a very last minute idea. My last Disneyland trip was the week after Christmas 2006. Actually that is not accurate, I did go to DisneySea when I was in Tokyo May 2007 so that counts. Either way, I haven’t had any recent plans to return until this past February when I attended a conference hosted at the Disney World Beach Club resort. I didn’t go into any of the parks this time, though it killed me walking past the Magic Kingdom on my way to the hotel bus from my spa treatment at the Grand Floridian. I fell in love with the Beach Club Resort. This was the first time I had ever stayed on the property and except for a day trip to Epcot one year, this was really my first time at the Disney World resort. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I got home and started planning a DisneyWorld trip for next year for me and my daughter.
But that wasn’t enough, I decided to change some tentative vacation plans for me and my daughter later this year and go to Disneyland for her Spring Break instead. My boyfriend was going to be working in Long Beach the same week, so bonus was we got to stay in his hotel room for no cost.
I think I realized I might be more excited than my DD8 when one morning trying to get out the door for work/school a few days before we were leaving I got sidetracked with Disney planning details. I started asking my DD “Do you want to take you mouseears? Do you want to take your TinkerBell wand?” She brought me back to reality when she asked “Can we talk about this later?” LOL.
DAY 1 Sunday March 16th
Sunday morning, March 16th, we woke up at 5am with a plan to leave Tucson by 6am. Due to my daughter confusing the shampoo and conditioner in the shower, it took me about 20 minutes to untangle her hair, so needless to say we hit the road a little later than planned. Thank goodness the coffee place by my house opens at 6am, I was able to get my coffee fix and some bagels and we hit the road. The drive was uneventful. I forgot that the halfway point in Blythe is in California not Arizona, which was where I was planning on refueling. I ended up paying about a dollar more a gallon than if I had filled up in Quartzsite, AZ (I always make this mistake). We also usually stop in Palm Springs so I can take a break and we can eat, but my DD was sleeping and neither of us was very hungry so we just decided to push through and get ourselves to the hotel.
I ordered 5 day park tickets for the cost of 3 days. My boyfriend wasn’t arriving until Monday. To take advantage of the 5 day tickets I booked a room at the Fairfield Inn across the street for the first night. I have never stayed here before and overall we were both very satisfied with the hotel. They gave us a 6th floor room with a view of the park. It was too bad we didn’t have more than one night because it would have been a great location to view the fireworks. The room was within walking distance of the parks, clean, decorated with Mickey and Disney pictures, had free internet AND parking (both pluses to me) and a nice little market/Pizza Hut/Seattle’s Coffee marketplace.
View from hotel room
We headed over to the Disneyland Park around 2:30pm. First stop we always make each trip is to get DD a new autograph book and pen. She loves the penny press machines, so we collected all the spare pennies and quarters in the house and got her a penny book as well. My DD wanted to go on Indiana Jones first. Which surprised me since she has only been on it once and cried afterwards because she thought the big ball at the end I had warned her about was going to be the size of a beach ball. But she loves thrill rides and said she was just going to keep her head down when the ball showed up this time.
Considering it was the Sunday before Spring Break I expected the park to be much more crowded than it was. We got Fastpasses for Indiana Jones with a return time of around 4pm. I was surprised there were even any left at that time of the day if that tells you about the crowds that day. As soon as we grabbed the Fastpasses DD saw Jungle Cruise and wanted to go on. It had a 5 minute wait posted so we headed on. It was our first official Disney ride this trip and we were both giddy and excited. After the ride I realized I really needed some food. We got in line for Bengal BBQ. The line was long and slow, DD asked if she could run through Tarzan’s TreeHouse while I waited. We got a Mickey pretzel and a chicken skewer. I have been to Disneyland at least a dozen times and I have never had these skewers. My DD and I fell in love with them. I don’t remember the exact order of things, but we managed to hit Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in addition to using our FastPasses for Indiana Jones in a short amount of time. DD did great on Indiana Jones this time, she loved it and wanted to do it again but said she would keep her head up next time when the ball comes out (we never made it back on, too crowded later in the week). Again, there were no real waits for anything. DD had her heart set on Splash Mountain, but it was too cold and was one of the few rides with a long wait.
We stopped in the Pooh store and bought 3 of the trader character packs. There are different sets with 3 characters in each one but you don’t know what you are getting. They seemed fun so we got a Star Wars one for my boyfriend, I picked one that could have the Toy Story little green man (my favorite) and DD picked a holiday one. I didn’t get my little green man, but DD got 3 princesses…she made a great choice.
We made our way over to TomorrowLand to check out the line for Finding Nemo and Fastpass availability for Space Mountain. Both had long lines and SM I think was out of Fastpasses. We went on Autopia since the wait wasn’t bad. At this point we were getting hungry for dinner. When I asked DD what she wanted she said “More of that chicken”. We headed back to Bengal BBQ, hitting the Dole stand on the way. DD got a pineapple juice and I got a Dole Float (another first for me). We got 3 chicken skewers to split and I have to say it was one of the most satisfying meals I have ever had. My daughter, in love with this chicken, said she was “in chicken heaven”.
Chicken Heaven
I wanted to get out of that area before it started getting crowded for the first Fantasmic showing. We went to FantasyLand where I bought DD a sweatshirt. It was freezing and she needed something warmer to wear. Fantasyland wasn’t too busy, we went on Pinocchio and Snow White, than hit the Matterhorn one of my DD’s all time favorites. We walked back over to Nemo to see if the wait had lessened with people heading over to Fantasmic. Score…20 minute wait!! Overall I thought they did a nice job, my daughter loved the submarine.
Here I need to insert a small gripe. What is it with everyone right on top of you in the lines? I tend to leave a good 6 inches to a foot between me and the person in front of me. First because I need some personal space and second because I think it is rude to be right on top of someone and constantly bumping into them. Every line I was in the people behind me were right on top of me (adults and children) constantly hitting my backpack. I even had a little girl in the Finding Nemo line tap me when there was literally a gap of about a foot between me and the person in front of me and said to me “there is room”. I said “I know” and turned away (kind of mean I know, I was getting tired from the early morning). I finally had to resolve to get over it or else I knew I would lose my mind.
Back to the report. Taking a tip from the boards I decided that we would hit the 2nd Fantasmic show (again cause I like to avoid crowds if at all possible). One of the best tips from these boards was to board the train close to the end of the first Fantasmic show and take it to New Orleans Square. We got on the train in TomorrowLand and got to Main Street Station when the fireworks started. The fireworks were still going when we got off the train in New Orleans Square. We sat at a table at one of the restaurants to wait out the crowds. As soon as the fireworks were over (they were cut short due to the wind) people started leaving and we went and found a seat. We found a ledge we could sit on to the left of one of the elevated lightboards. I was worried that it wasn’t the best location but it seemed like a comfortable place to sit. This is when the best part of our trip happened.
We were there for about 10 or 15 minutes, eating popcorn and laughing, still just thrilled to be there. A cast member who was directing traffic came up to my DD and asked her name. After my DD told her she said “We have been looking for you all day!! Mickey told me to give you these beads!” She gave my DD the beads and my DD was very appreciative. My DD wanted her to sign her autograph book and Cameron, the cast member, happily signed her book. I also went over and asked if I could take her picture with my DD since it would make a nice memory. I could see her talking to other cast members, one of who was on a walkie talkie. She told us if we needed anything to ask her. Soon, she came back to us and told my DD she had something else for her and gave her a light up necklace. Than she started chatting us up, asking where we were from, how long we were staying, etc. She kept excusing herself to go back to the girl on the walkie talkie.
At this point I thought something was up. She finally came back and said “Would you like better seats?” and I said “Sure!” She said I am going to take you over to one of our priority areas. She took my DD’s hand and led us over to a roped off area right in the center of the viewing area. I asked her name, shook her hand and thanked her again for being so nice to my DD. They let us in this roped off area, we had to sit on the ground, but we were right in front of the water (about one level up). They let in about 2 other families, but otherwise the area was empty for the show. I have to say that this did not make some people happy, I heard more than one person asking why they couldn’t sit there when it was practically empty. I wondered this too to be honest, I had assumed it would fill up with other people they chose to sit there. Overall a great day. We were freezing and tired, but we had a wonderful first day.
Cast Member Cameron
To save space I will add a new post for each day...Day 2 coming soon.
