I had this dream once, now I'm living it....

[MommyWithDreams]

Well here we are just 2 days away from our trip. I thought I'd start my trip report now because ....well ok I just can't wait.

The Cast:
Janelle: One hard working single mommy
Son: Ayden, a little boy that deserves this trip more than anything
Chris: My significant other of 7 months that belived in me enough to make this trip possible
Geneen: my sister, Mom to 3 that has family trips to Disney every year
Gavin: My brother in law...keeps the crew in line
Nicole: My 14 year old niece that I will be getting on Space Mountain this year
Gavin Jr: My 11 year old nephew...loves the big rides and is my "buddy"
Bailey: 6, Nephew full of energy and attitude

Below are pictures of my sister and her family from a few years ago...
and a picture of Chris, Ayden and I the night we completed our chain countdown...it looks funny now that there are 3 rings.




This will be my first year since graduating High School in 1993.
This trip was just a distant thought in December. We talked about going when I got my tax money but being a single mom I thought there was no way I could have done this. I still catch myself asking "WHAT ARE YOU DOING"...but in all honesty, we're doing pretty well right now and I"m not the least bid worried about not being able to "afford" all I want to do. Besides that....I think once you're in the gate, who cares about money, you're there, the happiest place on earth. Can't get much better than that can it?
My son is beside himself....we watch the Disneyland Sing Along video at least 3 times a day. He has the songs and the dances memorized. More later on my hopes for the trip. This girl is off to get an eyebrow wax.

 

[daisy_77]

Great start to your TR! You all are going to have so much fun!

I look forward to reading more when you get back!

 

[twinmama1999]

Have a wonderful trip!

 

[tracer]

Have a wonderful time and maybe we'll see you there. I'll check back on your TR when we get back

 

[MommyWithDreams]

Well the bags are packed and we're ready to go...Less than 10 hours our plane leaves! Packing was a nightmare.....I know I overpacked but I'd rather overpack than underpack. This is the first time I've had to pack a weeks worth of clothes for a toddler too......
I can't believe it.........the trip is here, it really truly is here. I want to go to sleep now just so the morning comes quicker.
Thanks to all the Dis'ers for all the help and tips and advice during my months of planning. I'll be back 3/17. Have a MAGICAL week!!!

 

[MommyWithDreams]

Guess who is sadly home? Why is it always so hard to leave there? I mean I'm seriously just feeling depressed tonight being back at home and I can't stop looking at my pictures. Trip report is coming!!!

 

[momto2nenas]

Guess who is sadly home? Why is it always so hard to leave there? I mean I'm seriously just feeling depressed tonight being back at home and I can't stop looking at my pictures. Trip report is coming!!!

Can't wait to hear about your trip! Hope you update soon!

 

[ozbrooke]

Can't wait to hear your trip report!

 

[Pooh0200]

I love trip reports can't wait to hear about your trip

 

[MommyWithDreams]

Ok so here I go with pictures and more details on our trip report.

Our flight leaves at 9:40 am so we're up and at em by 6am. Never was so happy to hear that alarm go off!!! My son did GREAT on his first airplane ride. He insisted on the window and loved the take off. We were there in no time. Our shuttle was waiting...58 bucks for a party of 8, can't beat that. We were at our hotel Desert Inn & Suites within 15 minutes. The ash from the fire that was in the hills was everywhere....made for a grim looking Southern Ca. It was pretty warm that day....high 80's.

We arrive to our Hotel and neither my sister and her familys room nor ours were ready. We were early so I wasn't too suprised. Check in was 3 and we were there by 12:30. The front desk staff, so rude and acted like it hurt for them to talk. He mumbled something about lockers past the pool. Seriously though, they were so unprofessional and acted like they hated working with "tourists". Oh well.....our room was nice. It was all the way in the back on the 3rd floor. Room was nice size for just a standard room. Only complaint was the white gross dried stuff on the comforter on my sons bed. No idea what it was but I toss the comforters on any hotel bed on the floor as soon as I pull the sheets back anyway.
So we're only at the Hotel but my son was pretty darn excited to just see a statue of Mickey

We headed right over to Downtown Disney for lunch. I loved it! I havn't been to DL since 93 so CA and the downtown disney district were all new to me. Nothing too spectacular, it's just an outdoor shopping mall but it was really nice and still felt like we were in Disneyland. We had lunch at Rainforest..only a 20 minute wait ...not too bad for lunch time on a sunday. My son Ayden was already tired since he went without a nap that day. I wanted him to get to bed early that night since we were hitting the park early the next morning. He did pretty well though.....he was in heaven.
We went to build a bear and loved stuffing his own bear. Mommy had her first tearful moment when he was holding the heart and closed his eyes to make a wish. I just love this picture....I wonder what he was really thinking.

He loved the disney store too....so did mommy. We knew what ears we were getting in the park the next day.

We had dinner at the tortilla place. I can't remember the name. The chicken tacos were really bland ..but the nachos were good. The line took forever.....it was just a taste though of what we were expecting the next day at the park when it came to lines.
We headed back to our hotel so we could watch the fireworks from the viewing deck. The viewing deck is nothing great but we still could see the fireworks. Honestly, I wasn't impressed with them from where we were.......but from inside the park on friday...that's a whole other story. More to come on that later. So straight to bed after that so we could wake up early for Disneyland the next morning.

Monday 3/12...We thought Main Street was open an hour before the park too so we were there by 8:15 when the park opened at 9. We didn't get in until about 8:45..
Right inside the gate we went to City Hall and got my boyfriend Chris his birthday button and my son his 1st visit button. Chris got birthday wishes from almost all the cast members, so that was really nice. As for my son...only ONE mention about his and that was when Pluto pointed at it on Thursday at Goofy's Kitchen. It was kinda weird to see so much attention on the birthday buttons but those that were first time visitors that were KIDS were really no big deal. Maybe that was just with us though. I kept my fingers crossed though that it would pay off though since every morning of the trip when I got my son dressed he insisted on his button. Even did today and we're home.

So enter the gate and guess who we see....PLUTO!! Our first character!! I was really nervous about how my son would be with the characters. He can be VERY shy and nervous around things like that. He did great though....another tearful mommy moment. Needless to say though I had to be in EVERY character picture with him...but that was ok, he always handed the character his autograph book and did smile from ear to ear in each picture. The only one he refused to get a picture with was a pirate, but mommy did that. None with Captain Jack though...everytime we got in line to see him he was leaving. Just my luck.

More on our first day at Disney to come....with trust me TONS more pictures

 

[momto2nenas]

Loving it so far! Cute pics!

 

[godalejunior]

You are getting me teary-eyed too, I guess that is what Mom's do. Can't wait to read more. Also, do the stores on Main Street open early, before the park? We won't have EE this time so I wouldn't mind doing some shopping while we are waiting for rope drop.

 

[MommyWithDreams]

Yep they were open early. I still don't know why it took us so long to be let in. Maybe it's not open an entire hour early. I'm sure someone can fill us in more on that. We did our EE on tuesday. What kind of tics do you have? If you have anything more than 3 day hoppers one day you can choose to have EE.

 

[godalejunior]

We upgraded our hoppers in Feb. to Deluxe AP's, so unless we stay onsite (staying at the Tropicana this trip) we are out of luck. I will miss EE though since we used it on our last trip and it really was nice for Fantasyland and the umpteen times we rode Buzz.
This trip we are going to focus more on things we did not get to last time like Aladdin, the parades, Tiki Room, etc.

 

[MommyWithDreams]

I hear ya...even with 5 day hopper passes, we still missed out on so much. With a 3 year old we took it at a very leisure pace, it was perfect for his first trip and gives us an excuse to go back again

 

[MommyWithDreams]

So on with the report......
after getting in the gate and getting our picture with Pluto out of the way and stopping by city hall we were off to find our first ride. After months of saying we were going to do Peter Pan we decided to save that for Tuesday which was our Early Entry day. Instead we decided to try the Jungle Cruise. I wanted something mellow that I knew Ayden would be totally ok with. We get there and well, no line....then they announce the ride will open at noon that day. Soooo what next, we head to Fantasyland and hop in line for Mr. Toad's. It was one of my favorites as a kid. Once we got on and went through the doors I remembered how "crazy" it was and thought Ayden might freak out. He didn't though....he kept telling him what a crazy driver he was and he seemed to love it. Next we did Dumbo and yep, it was a winner...we did it many more times that week.
We rode Alice in Wonderland and as we were coming out of the doors finishing the ride the Dream Team was at the exit. I pointed out to my boyfriend Chris...LOOOOK ..we were hauling butt trying to get off that ride and to the gate where they were. But...I swear they just dissapeared right before our eyes. I had read that on posts made by others that have seen them, it's like they are magic and one second they are there...the next second they are gone. I'm not sure what they were giving out...it all happened so fast. That was the only time I saw them. I did see a few people wearing the ears..and some families with the dream passes...not as many as I thought I'd see though. Oh and we did see a lot of honorary citizen buttons. My Ayden just proudly wore his first visit button.

We waited too late for lunch because Ayden was getting very hungry and tired quick. I think I just got sidetracked and missed his window. We grabbed lunch at the ....hmm i think was the stage door cafe, around the corner from the Golden Horshoe. It was ok..Chicken strips 7.99 and the monzarella sticks were 7.49. We got both and split them and Ayden had is one of MANY Smucker Pb&J sandwiches.

We headed back to the room for a nap. I felt horrible when I woke up. I hate sleeping in the middle of the day like that so it took a lot to get me going again. The nap though really helped Ayden so it was totally worth it for us to take that 2-3 hour break in the middle of our days so he was happy and ready to go for the night. And yes, we closed the park every night we were there. The lines were incredible after about 9:30. You could just walk on pirates...I loved the sign so much I had to take a picture.

Even during the days the lines weren't too bad. Unless it was space mountain and I don't think that line ever went below 45 minutes.

Thank Goodness for fast passes. This was my first experience with fastpasses and WOW ...I'd like to kiss the person that came up with that idea....it was wonderful! With the exception of autopia....we had fastpasses for that once and still waited about 30 minutes when the wait time only said 20.

I can't even remember what we had for dinner that night....but I do remember the sugar cookie I got on the way out at the Cookie shop on mainstreet. We made that a nightly ritual to stop and get a cookie every night. Ohhhh yummmy! Worth the whole 2.79 for that!
Oh and Ayden did some postcards the first day for the grandparents....he really thought he was something when he did those.

next..our early entry day...

 

[rosiep]

Ayden is adorable...thanks for sharing.

 

[ozbrooke]

Your trip report is getting me SOOO excited for my trip! I am counting down the days.

 

[twinmama1999]

I just wanted to say I'm so glad you had such a fabulous time. I'm loving your trip report and am looking forward to reading more!!

 

[MommyWithDreams]

Ok so day 2...Tuesday 3/13 EARLY ENTRY!!!!

Park opens at 9...we got there just a few minutes after 8. Went straight to Peter Pan, already a 20 minute wait. It seemed much longer though..man I love that ride!

Oh yea and I forgot to mention about last night. My son went on the Matterhorn. Really suprised the heck out of me but he was asked if he wanted to ride the mountain and he said yes. I was hesitant at first but hey...it's Disneyland and I felt he'd be ok. We tried to outscream eachother...he laughed instead.
So anyway, back to EE. It was still busy in my eyes. EE is not that big of a deal since almost everyone gets it anyway.........we had fun though.

We had our lunch reservations for Blue Bayou for that day at 1:20. We got there about 1:10. Requested waterside and was told it would be another 45 minute wait. What's the point of making priority reservations a month in advance then if it's going to be close to another HOUR??? By that time, my son was hot, tired and getting really cranky since it was a later lunch so we decided first available was what was best for us. We waited maybe 15 minutes and were still seated pretty close to the water. What AMAZING service!!! We were seated and had drinks within minutes! The rolls kept coming and the glasses stayed full. I FINALLY had my first Monte Cristo...it was good...I preferred it without the syrup/jelly stuff whatever that was... My boyfriend had Prime Rib..he wasn't thrilled with it. He said it was so seasoned you could barely taste the actual meat. He said it got better though the closer to the bone he got. My son had the PB&J...his staple food nowadays. My sister and her family floated by us as we ate...my son loved that. Chris was proudly wearing his birthday button so he got a little special treat that ayden shared with him.

I would DEFINITELY go to BLue Bayou again...it will become a tradition each trip. The reservation thing is just frustrating. One woman said when they called her name they had reseravations and waited OVER an hour for waterside. Not a big deal if you don't have a cranky hungry tired toddler.

We headed back to our room for our afternoon nap and headed back into the park for dinner.

Dinner was Pizza Port...it was ok. The slice was huge so I shared with Ayden...our one and only meal that we shared for less than 10 bucks that night!! WOO HOO
Right after dinner I finally got to ride Space Mountain. AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!! I loved the music sooooo much! STill the amazing ride I remember and the lights, well it's not too much it was just perfect I thought. I couldn't wait to do it again. Of course Chris had to pose for the picture. Guess he had a spot on his glasses..hahah

Here's a few more misc pics from the trip.

So that was day two......next day we hit California Adventure. More to come later...with yep..LOTS more pictures! Can you tell I took a lot!