Flights are officially booked - Disneyland in October!

[BecBennett]

I've changed my reservations again

Now I've got the following booked;
12th DCA
13th Disneyland
14th DCA
15th Disneyland
16th OBB
17th still thinking we'll do Universal on this day.

My in laws will be at Disneyland and DCA on the 12th and 13th too, so we'll try and book somewhere nice for dinner with them.

 

[BecBennett]

I've booked a rental car for October 17th. We'll pick it up from Anaheim, take it with all of our luggage to Universal Studios, and then drop it off at the LAX location after checking into our LAX hotel that night. It's actually the cheaper option by far to do this, however now I'm concerned about the security of having all of our luggage in the back of an SUV, while we're spending the day at Universal...



Why do jerks have to ruin it for the rest of us? I'm also hearing that when parking your car in Hawaii, you're better off leaving it completely unlocked, otherwise you run the risk of getting broken windows. What the hell is wrong with people? I'm hoping that's an overstatement, but it makes me anxious...

 

[BecBennett]

I'm mere hours away from when dining reservations open for my first day, and I'm still not exactly sure what I want to book!

I'm only going to book one table service restaurant a day, if that, but it's still doing my head in!

I want Lamplight lounge for one of our DCA days, and I think I also want a WOC Dining package for the other day, and maybe nothing on our OBB day. However I can't decide which WOC package I want to book, and which reservation I should try to book first, in case I need a second chance to try and get it 2 days later... I used to thrive on this sort of stuff, but since having kids, it now just gives me anxiety

I'm tempted to book Lamplight for the 12th and a WOC package on the 14th and then when we're there on the 12th see how hard it is to watch WOC without any viewing package, and if we manage to see WOC using the virtual que on the Wednesday I could probably cancel dining reservation, or at least not ask for the WOC package for the Friday.... Does that make sense? Because really, Wine Country Trattoria and Storytellers Cafe, aren't all that high on my "must do dining" list...

Similarly, the only night Fantasmic! and the Fireworks will be during our visit is Saturday the 15th. So do I want a Fantasmic dining package? I think I want to eat at Blue Bayou again, even though the menu doesn't do a lot for me. So I'm leaning towards trying to get a BB dining package for the 15th.

I just don't like the idea of sitting for ages, waiting for a show to begin, when there are so many other things I would prefer to be doing while at Disneyland. The FOMO is real!

 

[BecBennett]

And let's not forget Bibbidi bobbidi boutique! I have two girls and while the 9 year old would probably be happy to give this a skip in favour of more rides, I think the 9 year old would love it. But $100 + tax + exchange rate

I don't know if I can justify it...

If I knew how to do hair, then I'd just do it for her for OBB - she picked out this Belle dress https://www.kmart.com.au/product/disney-princess-belle-license-sleeveless-tutu-dress-s157758/ from Kmart as her Halloween costume. But honestly anything beyond a ponytail or a plait is really beyond my abilities... Maybe I'll watch some YouTube tutorials and just learn how to do a princess hairstyle and save the money...

 

[BecBennett]

I managed to book Lamplight Lounge for our first day there last night. Tonight I'll be booking the sit down meal for my birthday. I'm leaning towards Black Tap Craft Burgers in DTD, but they don't take bookings and there will be 9 of us, which makes me nervous! I might do some more research to find out if there is a number I can call for larger groups or what the wait is usually like and decide from there.

In other news, I really wanted a bum bag for the parks, and found some absolutely gorgeous ones on Etsy, but couldn't justify the cost. I was also pretty sure there was one floating around my family somewhere from a trip back in 95 so I've been pestering my family to look for it for me.

Going through stuff in my studio yesterday, I discovered that I've had it all along




It's not as cute as the ones on Etsy, but the price is right

 

[*Nessa*]

Bec! I can't believe it!!!! our trips will be crossing over and just miss each other!

We depart Sydney on the 14th Sept and get home 8th October.

We are going with another Aussie Disney bride Liz and her family

 

[BecBennett]

Bec! I can't believe it!!!! our trips will be crossing over and just miss each other!

We depart Sydney on the 14th Sept and get home 8th October.

We are going with another Aussie Disney bride Liz and her family

Seriously? I feel like we've just missed each other before too

 

[*Nessa*]

I think we did on our last trips as well - maybe a day or two different great minds, plan alike

 

[BecBennett]

So here's a run down of my dining how it stands at the moment;

October 12th - Lamplight Lounge (currently for 4, but I'm trying to get a second reservation for 5 people, and make this my birthday meal)
October 13th - Carnation Cafe (for 8, but if I can finagle Lamplight for the 12th I might cancel it)
October 14th - Storytellers Cafe for WOC package
October 15th - Blue Bayou (just a normal reservation at the moment, I've been waiting for the Fantasmic packages to drop, but previous to 15 minutes ago it didn't look like they had yet. However, 15 minutes ago I got a dining alert that there was availability! Spoiler alert - there wasn't. So now I'm just hanging around until 11pm in case they do happen to drop then...

 

[BecBennett]

Today is our first day and my family don't seem to understand the importance of rope drop!!

 

[Cedric Rose]

Today is our first day and my family don't seem to understand the importance of rope drop!!

They‘ll soon learn! We just had 10 days there plus OBB and the parks are packed. We got Genie+ most days and forked out for ILL a few times. An expensive exercise but saved us literally hours every day in queues, we just factored it into the cost of our trip. With the dollar and airfares we don’t know when we’re going back. Have a great time.

 

[zanzibar138]

Today is our first day and my family don't seem to understand the importance of rope drop!!

How exciting, enjoy! Hope you managed to get the family on board for rope drop