July 2009 Trip - This is the Stuff We Did!

[Desert Dwellers]

Our family of four - son 12, daughter 9 - will be taking our fourth trip to Disneyland July 1 - 5. I am an over-planner and have been visiting this board for months getting great tips. My over-planning hysteria includes loading the DCA and DL Mini Guides on my iPod touch. Plus I loaded a travel packing app on my touch. I am itching to download RideMax as well, but need to wait a little closer to our departure date. I've started stashing quarters and shiny pennies for the penny presses and dollar bills for tips.

My trip goes like the following in my head. I hope reality will be close to it. We will leave Phoenix early on the 1st. I hope to get to DL just after noon. I booked a package, reserving an upper level view room at DLH. The fantasy in my head has the room giving us an excellent view of the fireworks. We'll check in early and head to the park. My daughter is not one for princesses, but she loves fairies. She and I will head to Pixie Hollow for the meet and greet, and the boys can go explore on their own. When we all meet back up, I want to use the first day to ride my rides. I'm making my family go on the railroad, IASW, Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, etc. I promised them they would only have to ride those the first day. Except Jungle Cruise - my son loves that one. We'll have a nice dinner and make it an early night.

The next day is an MM, so we'll get up early and take advantage. I'll let the kids direct the schedule for this day. We'll have drawn up several different plans on RideMax. I think the kids will have fun plugging their choices into RideMax and making their own touring plans. My kids want to shut the park down, but I don't know if they can make it until closing.

One the 3rd, I'll let everyone sleep in from our late night. We'll get up and head to DCA. Again, I'll let the kids plan our tour with RideMax. I figure by late afternoon, we'll head back to DL, or if the crowds are awful, maybe the kids would like to hit the pool at the hotel.

On the 4th, we'll take a break from the park and go visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in the morning. In the afternoon, we'll head to The Grove. The boys can take in a movie, while my daughter and I visit the American Girl Place. We'll head back to DL in the evening. If we can brave the crowds we'll watch the fireworks in the park. Or watch them from our room (in my fantasy).

One question, since we're resort guests should that gain us entry if they are reaching capacity? Or should we enter the park early Saturday morning and get our hand stamped to get back in that night?

Sunday, we'll check out, leave our luggage with bell services and visit the park. I'll let everyone pick a couple of rides/attractions they need to do one more time. Then it's in the car and back to the desert.

Oh, I can't wait. In the meantime, I'll be visiting these boards a couple of times a day, reading great advice and enjoying everyone's trip reports. Thanks!

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Ride Pooh and immediately get a Tigger Tail.

Get a churro in New Orleans Square. They were so good last visit.

Find small Mickey ears at DTD Build a Bear for my daughter's American Girl doll.

Have a glass of wine at WCT while the kids explore a bug's land.

Find every penny press in the parks, after getting a list of machines from City Hall. Thanks for the tip, Tasscrapper!

I'm sure my list will continue to grow. . .

 

[Tasscrapper]

I was curious if you have a plan on the pressed pennies? My brother ended up getting all but 2 or 3 on our last trip and he didn't get those because the machines kept breaking down. He ended up buying enough of the pressed penny books to organize them all so he could help keep track of what he had and didn't have.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

No real plan for the pennies, more like a scavenger hunt. I'll have the kids bring their penny albums to store them in. I guess if I googled it, someone may have mapped out all the press locations.

The kids have some pennies from past trips. They'll need to go over them, and decide if they want duplicates. My backpack will be lighter at the end of the day, using all those quarters!

 

[Tasscrapper]

City Hall has a list of the machines and where they are so you can stop by there and get one of those. That way anytime you get in an area you can look at it and see what machines are available.

 

[hurleysweety]

Great start on the TR! I'm from the lovely land of Dry Heat too! Can't wait to read more about your plans. Love the idea of your "fantasy." I tend to do that as well, which usually sets me up for disappointment, but only for a moment until I realize how happy I am just to be there!

 

[blabbermouth]

Cute way to start your trip report!

I LOVE pressed pennies. But I don't get a map... it's not a mission to search them all out, to me it's more about the surprise of finding one!

Such a cute idea about small mickey ears for your daughter's doll... I guess Build a Bear has everything!

And my must dos also include a glass of wine at DCA, just I don't have any kids to send to play in bugs land.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

To-do before we leave:

Make a trip planning binder - idea courtesy of hurleysweety and Diznee Luver. Done

Decide if I want to order baskets from Vacation Planning or arrange for reserved seating for Fantasmic! That's a lot of souvenir money. Decided not to. That's a lot of coin.

To-do at DLR/DCA:

Get to Pixie Hollow and meet Tink.

Ride Pooh and immediately get a Tigger Tail.

Get a churro in New Orleans Square. They were so good last visit.

Find small Mickey ears at DTD Build a Bear for my daughter's American Girl doll.

Have a glass of wine at WCT while the kids explore a bug's land. Clued into this gem by kkmcan.

Find every penny press in the parks, after getting a list of machines from City Hall. Thanks for the tip, Tasscrapper!

Have a photo scavenger hunt - How many duck pictures can we get?

Visit the Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island. On all my trips to DL, I've never explored it.

Use the GCH entrance to DCA and be among the first in line for TSMM. Thanks for starting that thread, Princess Vija.

Go see Muppet Vision 3D.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

This is from our trip two years ago.

 

[Tasscrapper]

You're welcome for the tip. My brother is the one into the pins in a huge way. He said to make sure you know about the M&M containers. lol The tubes for mini M&M's are the perfect size for quarters. You can layer them 2 quarter and one penny over and over again so all you have to do is shake out the next set of coins and be ready to go. There are either the normal size or the 'big' or 'king' size which are taller and will hold more sets.

 

[disneydreamertoo]

Desert Dweller I am really enjoying your thread! Can you tell me how to "insert pictures"? I saw your practice picture--too cute! That's how I found your thread I was searching, "insert pictures"

All great ideas! Love the take on "Must Do's". I think there should be a section on the Disboards just for us uber-planners! We could post pictures of our spreadsheets, planners, index cards and on and on. I came across another neat thread that you have probably already found--but just in case anyone missed it:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2115381&goto=newpost

It's entitled "My Disney Planning Binder"

 

[Desert Dwellers]

disneydreamertoo, thanks for the thread about the planning binder.

To post photos, the first step is to upload photos to the DIS photo gallery. (If you use a photo-sharing website, you don't have to do this. I don't, so this is how I did it.) I'm a PC, not a MAC.

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/index.php

I use my DIS login to log into the DIS photo gallery. I followed all the steps to upload a couple of photos to my user gallery. It was pretty straight forward and easy to do. To insert a picture into my thread, I had two windows opened, and toggled between the DIS board and the DIS photo gallery.

Once you have an image in the gallery, click on the thumbnail to see the larger image. Right click on the picture. Halfway down the right click menu, you will see Copy Shortcut. Highlight and left click on Copy Shortcut. Back at the thread, click on the icon for inserting image. It looks like a little picture of mountains. You will see a prompt for entering the URL of your picture. Right click and you will see the option for Paste. Highlight and left click on Paste. Click on Ok, and your image should be there.

I use Preview Post to see if it works before I hit Submit. I hope that helps.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Here's another picture from our character breakfast.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Making progress on my trip planning. I've got my planning binder made and I'm starting to fill it up. I found Mini M&M's tubes. My children graciously offered to eat the M&M's so we can fill them with quarters and pennies. I got a coupon for Barnes & Noble and bought the 2009 edition of the Unofficial Guide.

The best, best news is today I paid the balance off on our vacation package through Disney Travel Co. My husband's company announced their layoffs on Monday, and I was waiting for that news before I laid down the cash, just in case. But his job is safe, so I felt great paying for the trip. Yeah!

 

[Minniecass]

I bought that Unofficial book as well...it's great lots of good tips..

 

[Desert Dwellers]

The kids have five days of school left. There is so much to do for the end of school that I haven't done too much trip planning, beyond reading a lot of posts here. I have been reading all the park updates at MiceAge. I love their pictures. I have almost finished reading the Unofficial Guide .

This afternoon I called Vacation Planning and made PS for the Lilo & Stitch breakfast. I've read a couple of threads where people pack each day's outfit for their kids in a ziplock bag. When it's time to get dressed, they just toss a bag to the kid, no muss, no fuss. Target had summertime print Glad zipper bags, and I picked some up for our trip. They just looked fun.

 

[shishigirl]

Just joining! Im loving your ideas for planning your trip. How fun to let the kids play around with ridemax and get them involved with the planning. I also love the binder you made! We leave in a few weeks and I may need to do that! Great ideas!

 

[Desert Dwellers]

I downloaded RideMax today, even though they've only loaded park info up to June 25. I was reading the RideMax thread, and I just couldn't wait. I played around using June 24 and 25, and the wait times didn't seem so bad. Could it be so horrible just a week later?

I did print out a bunch of Google Maps for my binder. So we can find our way from DL to the Aquarium and The Grove and back to DL.

 

[momto2nenas]

Ah, I was going to suggest the M&M canisters for the quarters and pennies but you got it down!

Have fun planning, that is 1/2 the fun for me!

 

[Desert Dwellers]

When we were first married, Mr. Dweller would come home from work and absent-mindedly empty his pockets wherever he happened to be. Soon, I was finding piles of change all around the house. I convinced him to centralize the change, and it became a fun money fund. When the kids got old enough to understand money and counting, it became their job to separate, count and roll the coins. Then whatever money was collected during the year would be their souvenir money for our summer trips. This is this year's batch of coins.

Turned out to be $175.00. I just ordered each kid a $100 gift card. For whatever reason, I feel more secure with them carrying the card instead of the cash.

RideMax finally has our dates loaded into their database, and now we're able to run trip plans.

FUN!!

Last year for our trip to Hawaii, I took binder rings, 4x6 index cards and a hole punch with us. Each night in the hotel, I would add the admission tickets, postcards, pictures, etc. of that day's activities. At the end of the trip, the kids' scrapbooks were already finished.

I love to go the Target Dollar Spot and buy their scrapbooks and photo albums. They're great for making small albums of the kids for relatives. So this year I made scrapbooks for each kid using a little Target scrapbook. I figure DwellerGirl can use hers for an autograph book as well when we visit Pixie Hollow.

For DwellerBoy

For DwellerGirl

So this trip is coming along nicely. UPS still hasn't called me to make sure I'll be home when they deliver my vacation package materials. My neighbor had a UPS delivery this morning, and it was all I could do to not run outside and tackle the UPS guy.

On Saturday, July 4th, I decided we would take a break from the parks and go to the Long Beach aquarium. I wanted to take the family on the Harbor Cruise while we were there. DwellerBoy watched Jaws last night, now he wants to avoid boats.