Four generations driving from BC to Disneyland! *UPDATED FEB 5th*

[CrystalS]

We're back!
Too late to get the trip report going tonight, but I will get the photos all loaded up and start posting tomorrow hopefully!

We had such a great time, and Jacob even got picks for Jedi training! Yay!

 

[PlutoRocks]

Wow - how time flies! I'm glad you had a great time - can't wait to see the pictures and read all about it.

 

[CrystalS]

So we drove down from BC, Canada. GoogleMaps says approx 24hrs driving, we planned to leave Fri afternoon, and hopped to get to Disneyland on Sunday, hopefully early enough to wander around and check things out.

In reality, we discovered that the "older" ones in our group, I won't name names, didn't care to drive to long into the night.... and that with young children and 5 bladders, we needed to make quite a few potty/food/gad breaks!

My mom left her van at my place the night before so that we could load it up and then pick up her and my grandma once my mom was home from work around 11am. By the time we got everyone and everything (bags, snacks, kid entertainment, car seats, stroller, scooter for my grandma), oh and after going BACK to my place to grab our Passports that I had forgotten to grab, lol, we got out of town around 1pm or so...

Friday night we stayed in Seattle. Leaving Seattle the next morning we drove through a whole lot of rain (looking back now, I'm assuming it was the beginning of the storm that was rolling into the west coast). Drove all the way to Redding, CA Saturday night. Then the next day we drove the rest of the way to Anaheim. Boy LA traffic sure it different from what I'm used to, especially at night and in the rain, everyone is so darn fast! lol, but my grandma said she was proud of how well I did, so I guess it was ok.

Some geese we came across at one of our rest stops, they must be Canadian right? lol

A wind turbine and some orange trees WITH oranges on them, very cool.

One of the first palm trees we saw!

We did manage to get to the Paradise Pier hotel on Sunday, but it was late on Sunday! While driving I had called ahead to let them know we would arrive late. It was dark when we pulled in, sometime after 7pm, but before 8pm, because the concierge lounge was still open for us to check in.

I had requested balloons for the kids for when we arrived, and the concierge attendant brought them out for them after checking it, the kids loved them, and it made their day!

So the PPH won't lend you their luggage cart for you to take your own luggage up... so if you have a lot of stuff, you pretty much have to use thier baggage service. Not that this is bad, but personally, I like to load my luggage onto the cart myself because I know what needs special care, etc. And I just prefer to keep my luggage in my possession. So now we had to tip the guy who loaded up our cart and brought it to the baggage guys.

We then went to find our room, 14th floor, number 1400, right at the end, Park view room! After walking into the room we discovered that World of Color was playing at CA park! So I called for our luggage, turned on the woc audio channel and we all watched some of woc out the window. It was really neat to be able to watch from our room!

The bags arrived, and then we had to tip that guy (I don't mind tipping, but was annoyed that we really didn't have the choice of borrowing a rack to bring up our own luggage...). Once we were settled we realized that we were quite hungry, but that it was almost 9pm! The PCH Grill usually sat its last customers at 8:45pm, said the lady at the front desk. So we rushed down to try to get there in time.
The servers we wonderful and kindly let us in DS ordered the "make your own pizza" and loved that he got to put it all together himself! What a great idea for kids!

As we were finishing up there were no other customers left in the restaurant, and the staff were cleaning up and setting up the tables for the morning, but they never rushed us once. It was a wonderful meal and we were stuffed and ready to relax in our room and go to bed, only to wake up early to visit the Magic Kingdom in the morning! Yay!

Here are some photos (from throughout our stay) of the PPH hotel and our room, I thought they were most relevant to show all in this first post.

 

[CrystalS]

Our first full day, and of course we went straight to Disneyland Park!

Just in the gates

Caught Goofy on the way in

Obligitory photo by the statue/castle, complete with tinkerbell

To Fantasyland we go

We then road all the Fantasyland dark rides, minus Alice in Wonderland. Skipped the teacups, Casey Jr, Storybookland Boats and Dumbo. We skipped a few because we were finding that my grandma was having troubles getting in and out of some of the rides in Fantasyland, so we wanted to move on to something else. Since we had just been to Disneyland with the kids in September and rode pretty much everything, we didn't mind missing a few this time.

Of course DS had to try his hand at pulling out the sword before we moved on

Then we hopped on to Small World

Now, I was under the impression that all the Christmas decor was removed after Jan 8th, but we soon found out that they had left Small World in it's holiday style Now it may not be a big deal to most, but our family doesn't celebrate holidays, and so we found our selves stuck on Holiday small world, which is not a short ride, lol. Oh well.

Now it was time to head into Toon Town

Ran into Pluto

Jacob found a car

We rode Roger Rabbit (yup even my grandma), and Gadgets Go Coaster (just me and DS). Then we hit up Mickey's house, which we had missed in September.

...continued in next post so as not to go over the photo limit per post, lol

 

[CrystalS]

At some point we made our way to Tomorrowland and managed to come upon the Star Wars training about 5-10 minutes before it started. There was still some space on the floor by the blue line, so I positioned DS right at the line and reminded him about waving his arms like we had practiced. (Of course I spaced out and forgot to make him a sign, but he was wearing his Star Wars shirt!)

When it came time to pick the children DS was waving his hands all about, and when the Jedi master was looking our way I lifted him up and the Jedi master called on the "levitating boy" lol. We did it! So up he went and got in line for his cute robe and sword! YAY!

Video:


We headed over to Adventure land and saw the paddle boat

rode the jungle cruise

My mom talked my grandma onto Indiana Jones, so I took the kids into Tarzans treehouse

Had lunch at Big Thunder BBQ

and caught the parade as we left to get snacks at the concierge lounge at the Paradise Pier Hotel

1st park day! Part 2 to follow this evening

 

[PlutoRocks]

Love the updates! Great pictures! I too would have thought all the Holiday decor would be down by now - it would have surprised me. The hotel looks like a lot of fun - did you guys enjoy it? Love the beach balls on the beds - I wouldn't have been able to resist throwing them at someone

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[CrystalS]

Love the updates! Great pictures! I too would have thought all the Holiday decor would be down by now - it would have surprised me. The hotel looks like a lot of fun - did you guys enjoy it? Love the beach balls on the beds - I wouldn't have been able to resist throwing them at someone

Looking forward to reading more!

Thanks for following along, I always wonder if anyone is reading, lol.
The hotel was fun, it was nice still being in the "Disney Magic" so to speak.
It was fun to ride the glass elevator all the way up and watch out over CA park as we rode up. (did you know that the glass elevator only has call buttons on floors 1, 2, 3, 14, and 15?? It's considered the "concierge elevator", although anyone can ride it up. It makes it very fast ride, since there are no stops at the other floors

The beach balls were very cute, there was a cute note in the room that mentioned that if the beach balls ended up finding their way home in your luggage you would be paying $60/each for them!

We used room service a couple of times too. It is a bit expensive (a few extra fees are tacked on), but it is nice and convenient. I have some mini ketchup, mustard, mayo and hot sauce bottles that you get with your room service, very cute!


I'll try to get some more photos up tonight of the next part of our first day.

 

[CrystalS]

So we went back to the hotel and got a bite to eat from the concierge lounge (can you believe that out of the 5 days that we were there I didn't remember to take a singe photo of the lounge!).
My grandma decided that she would like to call it a day and would stay at the hotel while we went back to the parks for a bit longer (this was the only night the parks were open late, until 11pm).

So back we went, this time my mom rode my grandmas scooter since grandma wouldn't need it. My mom has bad knees/feet from standing too long and so she really appreciated being able to use the scooter in the evenings!

Here is her "old lady with a blanket and a scooter" pic that she thought would be funny

I think we had gone into CA park for awhile (totally forgot about the entrance in the Grand Californian Hotel, and so we went ALL the way to the main gate, lol, oh well). We rode on Little Mermaid, Toy Story Mania (which we all love), then made a mad dash over to Tower of Terror. My just turned 5yrs old ds absolutely LOVES TOT! He and I rode it while my mom waited with dd. Then ds wanted my mom to go with him but she wasn't up for it that night, we figured if we walked super fast we might be able to sneak it one last ride, Monsters Inc, before they shot down the rides for the evening, and we did make it, barely, lol.

After that we made our way out of CA and into DL which was open for a bit longer. We decided to catch Pirates of the Carribbean and ended up riding twice, since there was no line they just let us stay on for another loop.
Then we went over to Indiana. When my mom and grandma rode earlier they got a rider switch pass for me, so I wanted to use it, but when we got to the line we found out that it was shut down for one reason or another
We may also have ridden Big Thunder this night too.

As the park began to close we made our way towards the entrance where we ran into this lovely lady:

We had a nice quiet walk back to the hotel, and both children fell fast asleep on the way there. Having the double stroller really is the best thing ever for us! It is a life saver when both kids are falling asleep at the end of the day, also during hte day if we need to make a mad dash somewhere, we just load them both up into the stroller and go, that way we don't have to keep an eye on a walking child, very handy!

Oh and I'll add it into the post above in a moment, but I will also post it here too for those that don't want to scroll back.
Here is the compiled video of DS's Jedi Training experience! It's almost the whole show, so it is a bit long. He had a blast!

 

[PlutoRocks]

That picture with Minnie is really cute! How lucky to run into her as you are leaving.

I'm not a huge elevator fan so that ride from the 3rd to the 14th floor might do me in. It would be a great view though - the parks always look so pretty at night with all the lights.

You are making me excited for my trip even though I still have 120+ days before I leave...patience, patience...

Thanks for the update!

 

[KittyKat1978]

Hello fellow BC'er!!

Looking forward to hearing about your trip. I go in 12 days

I have never considered driving down...Did it actually take you 24hrs?

 

[heatherleigh]

I liked your report & photos. I figured the parks would be virtually empty for the time of year you went. It doesn't sound like you had to battle any crowds. One of these days, we will go in Jan./Feb. again.

Was it freezing cold? That's one of the only things I remember from Jan. I have photos of my boys riding the teacups at night, dressed in winter coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. It did not take away from our fun in the least though! The walk-on rides made up for it.

 

[CrystalS]

I liked your report & photos. I figured the parks would be virtually empty for the time of year you went. It doesn't sound like you had to battle any crowds. One of these days, we will go in Jan./Feb. again.

Was it freezing cold? That's one of the only things I remember from Jan. I have photos of my boys riding the teacups at night, dressed in winter coats, hats, gloves, and scarves. It did not take away from our fun in the least though! The walk-on rides made up for it.

The only day it wasn't "empty" was the Monday which was MLK day, but once evening came it was empty again because I'm assuming everyone had school/work the next day so left early.
It was so nice, everything was pretty much walk on, or no more than 5 min wait.


I'm not sure what your idea of cold is, lol. We are from BC Canada so it was warm for us, lol. We had snow at home! For the days we went it was nice during the day (no jacket needed, unless there was a breeze) and then at night we'd have a light jacket and were just fine. I also brought blankets in the stroller for the kids for if they fell asleep (which we used a couple of times). I saw what I'd assume were locals, and CMs wearing heavier jackets, which was funny for us because we were feeling warm compared to home. lol.

 

[CrystalS]

Hello fellow BC'er!!

Looking forward to hearing about your trip. I go in 12 days

I have never considered driving down...Did it actually take you 24hrs?

I'd think the actual driving part was about 24hrs. We of course stopped a fair amount for bathroom/food breaks with the kids.

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

I loved the update!!

 

[CrystalS]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get this next part up, just been busy at home.



So on Tuesday I was to attend a travel agent tour (This was the reason we came on this trip, lol, because it was such a great deal)!

We had breakfast in the lounge again (concierge is very nice to have if you can budget for it).
After breakfast we wanted to go swimming, so off we went, walking over to the Disneyland hotel's pool (since our pool was being resurfaced).

It was a nice little walk and we found the pool without any trouble. It looked like fun with the new water slide structure up! It was weird that the two sides ended it different places, if your child decides to switch back and forth between the two you'll need to keep a close eye on which direction they are going! They had two smaller slides that I was able to put my 17month old on and hold onto her and slide her down, which she of course LOVED and wanted to do over and over again. It was nice that the area at the base of the slides is a shallow pool, so dd was able to splash around and play while her big brother went on the slides!
There was also a couple of nice swimming pools in the lower area, and a nice big hot tub. (there was a big hot tub in the upper area by the slides too).

After swimming/sliding for awhile we made our way back to the hotel where I got the kids settled with my mom and grandma. Then I headed over to downtown disney for my TA tour


So we met up at ESPN Zone where we were offered refreshments and some treats. (I didn't know they were offering these and so I had made sure to eat before showing up, lol, so I just had a drink. But the offerings did look tasty!)

After chit chatting at ESPN Zone for a bit we headed off to check out the newly renovated Disneyland Hotel!
They showed us the pool area which I had already visited earlier that day, and we checked out Trader Sams Tiki bar, which was quite neat. Supposedly when you order certain drinks, different "things" happen in the bar.....

We then ventured up into one of the towers to check out the new rooms! The room looked very nice, and I really LOVED the musical, light up head boards! It was probably a good idea we stayed at PPH and not here, or else I can imagine that I would have had two little children constantly turning it on the entire time we were in the room!

Next we walked over through PPH and then Grand California Hotel, and into California Adventures (stopping at each of those locations for some information). At CA we went into Blue sky cellar to look around, and we got a good view into Cars Land over the fence too.

a look over the fence into cars land, wish I had had my better camera with me for this

Our tour ended and we were dismissed inside the park, so this had basically gotten me free admission into the park. Too bad I had the kids waiting for me back at the hotel or I would have taken more advantage of this! I did manage to hop in the single ride line of California Screamin once though before feeling guilty about leaving the kids at the hotel, lol. Then I made my way back to PPH.

That night we had dinner at Goofy's Kitchen! Yay!
The characters were great here, especially Goofy and Minnie! They really took time to visit and interact with the kids.
dd was initially a bit hesitant about Minnie and goofy, but they took their time with her and she ended up high five-ing Goofy and even dancing with Minnie! The food was good too, they had the most tender, fall apart in your mouth, roast beef ever, it was delicious! So many offerings for dessert too!

Click for a video of dd dancing with Minnie!


And that pretty much concludes our "rest" day


Park day 2 is next!