First PTR/TR for our first family trip!

[dragonflycurls]

I've been to Disneyland many times (wife and I used to live in Costa Mesa and had annual passes) but we've never gone there on a vacation for multiple days. Now that we live in Seattle, we've flown down for one trip (February 2012) but now we're going with family! My wife, my brother in law, his girlfriend and myself will be there 12/11 (arriving LAX very late at night) and my MIL and FIL will be there for 12/12, and my FIL will probably pop in and out throughout the weekend. (they will be visiting with my MIL's aunt who lives in the LA area.)

The trip was originally just going to be my wife and I as a belated 30th birthday celebration for myself. When my in laws found out about it, they thought it would be fun to tag along (we agree!). So now we've got our first family trip to Disneyland scheduled!

Our Cast of Characters:
On the left is me, Audra and the right is my lovely wife Dylan. We didn't think moving away from SoCal would be a big deal, and we've found that the number 1 thing we miss is our weekly trips to the land!

My MIL Joan and FIL Bill
They're only going to be around for 1 day, but it will be their first time seeing DL all decorated for Christmas!

My BIL Will and his girlfriend Melody. Will hasn't been to DL since he was a teenager, and my wife has known Melody for over 15 years now. She's practically like a sister to us both! Will was thinking of proposing on our trip, but isn't feasible this trip due to finances.

Our trip has already hit some snags. We booked BWPPI quite awhile ago through Costco, and advised our FIL to do the same. Will and Melody will be staying the same length we will, so we tried to get the same hotel. Well, of course our hotel sold out. FIL thought it would be okay to book Pavillions Plus, which is a bit of a farther walk than anyone wanted. We just saw that some spots opened up at our hotel, so FIL is going to try and call tomorrow to change their reservation. Fingers crossed!

We'll be flying from Seattle after work on Wednesday the 11th. Bill and Melody are driving down from Sonoma County and will be picking us up at the airport and taking us to our hotel. Our plan is to hit the parks with our early entry 3 day tickets Thursday morning.

This is my first trip report and I've got so much planning to write out!

Coming up:

• Disney Trip Bucket List
• Dining ressies
• Christmas Tour or Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour?

 

[dragonflycurls]

Awesome news!

My father in law was able to rebook and reserve Will and Melody at Carousel Inn.
This is a huge relief and takes a lot of stress off the planning!

Since we're getting close to being 60 days out, our first item to tackle is dining ressies!

We know we want to do the Big Thunder Mountain BBQ, but we have no clue if it will be open in December? We were hoping to maybe do this Thursday for dinner since that will be the day everyone will be there.

Friday we are thinking of doing Ariel's Grotto dinner for World of Color reserved seating.

Saturday will probably be a non-park day as my wife and Melody want to go into LA, so we're thinking of maybe doing a character breakfast to start the day. Maybe Surf's Up (which wife and I have done and loved) or trying something new and doing Goofy's Kitchen.

Up next: Disney Bucket List!

 

[dragonflycurls]

Time for my Disney bucket list! While it would be awesome to scratch everything off this time, I know I've got many future trips coming up!

Eat a Dole Whip
Get silhouette's done
Get caricatures done
Meet Peter Pan
Be at the park until closing
Ride the front car on California Screamin'
Eat at Club 33
Eat at Carthay Circle
Ride the Lily Belle
Ride in the front of the monorail
Fantasmic Dessert Seating
Take the Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour
Take the Christmas Tour
See a proposal at Disneyland
Get a Disney Tattoo
Get a Dumbo popcorn bucket
Get a Disney balloon

 

[dragonflycurls]

Trip planning update!

Pre-ordered photopass plus today, YAY!

Next up:
Need to find the wife walking shoes- she loves her converse but they are like the least supportive for multiple days at Disneyland!

We're still stuck on what day will be our non-park day. We're thinking Saturday since that might be the busiest of our days, but it might make more sense for Sunday to be our "wander around LA" day since our flight leaves from LAX Sunday night at 8pm.

Plus, our tattoo guy is in Huntington Beach, so we'd like to find time to visit his shop and get some tattoos while we're there.

I'm starting to wish our trip was a little bit longer, but I'm literally using all my PTO for this trip.

 

[dragonflycurls]

Big Updates!

Just paid the last bit of money for my Disney trip through Costco!

We've had to make some adjustments to our touring schedule thus far. We're pretty easy going for the most part. We'll be there for the 3 day early entry on Thursday to do all the Fantastyland rides, Indy, etc.

We also plan a couple of sit down meals. We know counter service places we like and might wander around to when hungry.

Thursday night- BTMBBQ with the whole family. This is my wife's favorite (she loves the veggie options here!) so we're excited to go as a whole.
Friday night- Originally we made plans to use our premium dining at Ariel's Grotto for WOC passes. Well, I saw the redone menu and nope. We opted out. Instead we're going to eat at the Blue Bayou. This will be really special for Bill and Melody as they've never gotten to eat here. They've always been very budget savvy when they've visited the parks before, so I'm glad we get to experience this!

Photos: I've been looking around Pinterest for ideas of photos that I want to do.

Budgeting for souveniers- I feel worse than a kid when I think of all the things I want to buy! So far I think I will finally get Mickey ears with my name on them, at least 1 ornament, a photo frame, coffee mug and *fingers crossed* Alex and Ani bracelets! If the budget allows and I can get enough savings done in time I think I would love to get the Haunted Mansion bag, but we will see.

 

[norcaldisneyprinces]

I am in for the report! No Holiday trip for us this year so I will live vicariously!

 

[dragonflycurls]

Exciting to see that someone is following me, I've gotten busy and thought that I should stop updating.

Some BIG news. See, originally I had a friend who's work had a corporate membership to Club 33. They would make a reservation but she needed to go with us. Sadly she was planning on going to Palm Springs or Vegas or some desert area and wouldn't be able to go wth us.

Well, I have been graciously offered a lunch reservation for my birthday at Club 33!!! My wife and I will be dining there for lunch on our first day in the parks.

I cannot believe this will finally happen, and can't thank this person enough!

 

[dragonflycurls]

Two more sleeps until we begin our trip and three more sleeps until we visit the parks!!!

I'm slightly worried as my in laws are very fly by the seat of your pants folks and I'm a bit more of a planner. I don't go very crazy, but they are the type to not even want to do reservations.

But, so far, here are our updated plans.

Arrive at LAX at 10:15. BiL to pick us up and take us to BWPPI for check in (late night In N Out also possible, wife and I hate eating before flying and will likely be starving)

Thursday:
Arrive at Disneyland for 8am EMH. Fantasyland rides and possibly Matterhorn, Finding Nemo.
10am ish: Meet MiL and Fil at California Adventure to get RSR and World of Color fast passes. Then possibly ride California Screamin/TSM.
Head over to Disneyland for lunch. Wife and I will be doing Club 33, the family will be doing Blue Bayou (we aren't being cruel by not inviting them with us to Club 33- they aren't Disney fanatics and when we asked, they said they are passing).

After lunch/dinner: Possible to spend time in Disneyland, maybe Pirates, haunted Mansion before heading back to California adventure. Photos with Santa at Elias? Tower of Terror?

Friday: Breakfast at the hotel before heading to the parks at opening. Our goal is to get Disney candy canes! Space Mountain, Indy, PFF? We have dinner reservations for BTM BBQ and want to see the parade and fireworks so will probably spend the majority of the day at Disneyland. BiL and FiL will probably go off on their own to do some rides the gals don't do. We will probably take it easy.

Saturday: Free Day. We have friends in LA we will be visiting with. Possibly going to the Grove or Santa Monica.

Sunday: Breakfast in the park with Minnie and then any last minute things we wanted to do and didn't get a chance to do. Our flight leave LAX at 8:00pm, so we probably need to leave the park around 3ish.

 

[dragonflycurls]

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE!

We've been back for a week and I've been trying to get back to life and I finally have some time, so I needed to update this before I've completely forgotten almost everything!

Wednesday night we arrived at LAX right on time where my BIL and his girl picked us up. We headed right over to the hotels so we could get some sleep to hit the parks first thing in the morning. Our first impression with BWPPI was good. The room was huge. My only complaint is we booked through Costco to have the basic room, which would have had a queen bed. Well, they "upgraded" us to the mini suite which had two full size beds. I would have liked the extra space of the queen!

Thursday: Woke up, got ready and decided to hit up the hotel breakfast at Captain Kidd's next door. This was the only morning we attempted this as we were not impressed with it and found it to be fairly gross.

Since we had early entry for our 3 day park hoppers we got to the park around 8:10. We high tailed it to Peter Pan and couldn't believe the line was already 30 minutes! We were a little worried but it just seemed that everyone wanted to do this one early. Our last trip we did this with only a 10 minute wait during early entry. We were able to go through and do all the dark rides with plenty of time.

Around 9:30ish we started heading over to California adventures so we could meet up with my in laws. We were able to ride Soarin' with a 5 minute wait before heading over towards Ariel's ride where we would be meeting them.

We took a side route to the Elf training which was pretty cute and adorable. They had a guy walking around with a guitar who was really fun to interact with while we were waiting for our elf names.

By the time we met up with our in laws it was already past 11:00 and the RSR fast passes were long gone. We decided to head over to Disneyland since we both had our lunch passes. On the way out of the park my BIL's girl wanted to go to guest services to inquire about a disability card for her plantar fasciitis. She had only been in the park a couple of hours and she does pretty good but the standing in place was really flaring it up. Seeing the guest services experience with this was eye opening. It was pretty difficult and you could tell they do not want to hand these cards out. The cast member first attempted to get us to use a wheelchair. She said something like that wasn't really in her budget for the trip. He offered to comp it, which was very nice of them, but we already had my mother in law in a wheelchair we would have to push and didn't really want to have to push another person around. He wouldn't comp an electric wheelchair. He then agreed to give us the card. She was really embarassed with the whole ordeal, but she was very grateful for being able to use the card. She had some therapeutic exercises she could do in the hotel room and would also do some during our breaks throughout the day which helped.

Coming up... our adventure at Club 33!!!!