July 2009 Trip - This is the Stuff We Did!

[Desert Dwellers]

My daughter came up with an ear infection today. With three weeks to go 'til our trip, she'll finish her 10 day course of antibiotics and be good to go. I'm so glad she got sick now, and not the day before we leave. She's such a good planner!

 

[Hawleys]

My daughter came up with an ear infection today. With three weeks to go 'til our trip, she'll finish her 10 day course of antibiotics and be good to go. I'm so glad she got sick now, and not the day before we leave. She's such a good planner!

Oh no! Hopefully, the antibiotics help her feel better quickly.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

^^Thanks, the NP said she'd feel better within 24 hours. The ear drops and Motrin seemed to perk her up.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Look what the UPS man delivered today!

The luggage tag seems more substantial than ones we've gotten in previous years. But before they gave us ESPN fun zone cards, too, so I guess it evens out. The souvenir park hoppers are pretty cool, too.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

On the way to Disneyland:

Stop off at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway? Still deciding, may be too anxious to get to DL.

Count all blue cars and red cars.

To-do at DLR/DCA:

Get to Pixie Hollow and meet Tink.

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

Ride Pooh and immediately get a Tigger Tail.

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

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?

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

Visit these attractions for the first time:

Explore Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island.

Go see Muppet Vision 3D.

Visit Disney Animation.

 

[PrincessSarah314]

On the way to Disneyland:


To-do at DLR/DCA:

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

Visit these attractions for the first time:

What is TSMM?

 

[Desert Dwellers]

TSMM - is Toy Story Midway Mania. I've never done this ride before, so I'm pretty excited to try it.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Wheee! It's almost time to go! Today I put in requests for newspaper and mail holds. And I made my Mousekeeping envelopes. Canyon girl provided a link to themouseforless.com in the Packing List thread. They had lots for fun choices for the envelopes.

Now, to the laundry. My kids will look scrappy for a few days, so I can save their nice outfits for the trip.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

ACK! Still packing and we leave bright and early tomorrow morning. I went with the family to see Transformers this evening. I should have stayed home and finished my chores. Oh well, I'll sleep in the car.

Tomorrow Disneyland

 

[Hawleys]

Have a great trip!

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Thanks, Hawleys. I hope to have a lot of good pictures to post in my trip report.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Our first day here was great. Crowds are not bad, we did lots of rides. And we can see fireworks from our room.

 

[Hawleys]

Are you back?!? How were the crowds? Did you have a wonderful time?

 

[Desert Dwellers]

We had the best time on our trip to Disneyland. We arrived July 1 and left July 6. On July 4th, we took a break from the park and visited the Long Beach Aquarium and The Grove in Los Angeles. I could write a book for a trip report, but I’ll just try and hit all the highlights. And there are a lot of highlights, because it really was a special trip for us.

We arrived at Disneyland Hotel around 1:30 on July 1. Our room in the Wonder Tower – 8th floor was ready for us. I had wanted the Dreams Tower, but we loved our room. It had a great view, was large with a day bed so the kids had their own beds. I loved having the doors open. I will miss that with the remodel.

Our View

We could see fireworks from our room!!!


We got to DL around 2:30 and Desert Girl and I went straight to Pixie Hollow to meet Tink. I told the boys to meet us around 4:00 thinking we would have at least an hour wait. We met both Tink and Silvermist and were done in 30 minutes. The following Sunday, the wait to meet Tink and Iridesa was only 15 minutes. The whole visit was like that, I never felt that crowds or wait times were bad at all.

Silvermist

Tinker Bell

I got a PhotoPass card at the first visit to Pixie Hollow, and I’m very pleased with the pictures they took there. I will say we hardly ever saw PhotoPass photographers at DL, but saw many at DCA. We got several of the specialty shots at DCA. The one photographer we found at DL took our picture in front of the castle. But when I set up our account online, those pictures were not in our album. They have a form online if you are missing pictures from your account. So maybe they’ll find them. I hope so. She took a shot with my daughter’s hands outstretched so she could be holding Tink. I really wanted that shot. I won't buy the CD for a couple of days, giving them time to find the missing pics.

I got a Tigger Tail. It was good, but nothing can beat the Mickey Mouse Crispy Treat. I had one everyday. Desert Girl had a Mickey Mouse cookie everyday. The boys had ice cream as their daily treat. We also enjoyed all the skewers at Bengal BBQ. I ordered the fresh fruit there. It came in a large tray and I thought it was priced very reasonable. It was fresh and tasted good, and didn’t cost any more than it would have in the grocery store.

Tigger Tail

Two of my favorite lunches were at DCA. We stopped at the Bountiful Harvest stand and bought lots of different fruit. My husband bought fresh sourdough bread at the bakery, and we felt like we were having the best feast. We sat at the picnic tables next to the Farmers Market. The tables were in the shade, and it was really quiet back there. Both times there were only one or two other families sitting there. We kept saying where are the crowds.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Ridemax worked very well for us. We never had a wait more than 25 minutes when we didn’t use a fastpass. The only exception was Toy Story Midway Mania - we did wait 40 minutes for that one. We rode the Matterhorn several times, day and night, right and left side. We prefer the right side at night. Also, BTMRR was so different at night. It seemed faster, scarier and the bats were FUN! The boys rode Space as their 1st ride while we girls went to Pixie Hollow. For symmetry’s sake, Desert Boy made sure the last ride of our visit was also Space Mountain.

We had never gone to Disney Animation in any of our previous visits. We went twice and really loved it. We did two Animation Academies – we drew Pluto and Jack Skellington. I enjoyed that part more than the rest of the family, but my wonderful family indulged me. Just like they indulged me with Small World and the Tiki Room. Turtle Talk was really cool, and Desert Girl was selected to ask Crush a question. She asked the names of his 65 kids. Crush’s answer was too funny.

Ariel in It's a Small World

Woody and Bullseye

Simba and Pumba in IASW

Stitch catching a wave

Tiki Room Birds

And the flowers croon

We only went through the main gate one time in all of our park hopping. We went to DCA through GCH and rode the Monorail into DL. There were never lines at the Monorail, and going through security was a breeze there. One security guard couldn’t figure out why my bag was so heavy. I had to explain to him it was two mini M&Ms tubes filled with quarters and pennies.

One of my To-Do list items was finding small mouse ears for my daughter’s doll. They had different choices of them at Build-a-Bear. So cute. The doll went with us to PCH Grill for breakfast and was quite a hit. All the characters had to hold the doll, and Goofy even tried to put Lizzie’s head into his mouth.

Doll Ears

Stitch with Lizzie

Goofy right before he bit Lizzie's head

I’ll end with a couple of our duck photos. We had the best time. I sure appreciate all the great tips and advice given in this forum! Thanks!

Castle Duck

Resting Ducks

 

[Hawleys]

It sounds like you had a wonderful trip. Your daughter is just cute as a button.

I'm curious, what time did Ridemax send you to Toystory Mania?

 

[DLR29]

Sounds like a fun trip. Out of curiosity, what was Crush's response? I saw a Turtle Talk show a couple weeks ago and he was asked that question too. He actually listed a really long list of names. Don't know if he actually named 65, but it seemed like it.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

Hawleys

Your daughter is just cute as a button.

Thanks, we're pretty sweet on her. We went to DCA on a Friday. Ridemax scheduled us for TSMM at 2:17 pm without a fastpass - 35 min wait. It was listed in boldface which means it is time sensitive. I guess if we missed by too much either way, the wait would increase.

I had Grizzly River Run figured into our itinerary, but after the soaking I got on Splash the day before, I couldn't bear it. I just replaced it with another ride on CA Screamin'.

DLR29
I can't remember them all, but it sounded like a lot more than 65 - he threw in a lot of Juniors at the end. It started out with Michelle, LaChelle, five or six variations of Shell. Then it was two sets of twins - Bill and Ted and Cheech and Chong. The triplets - Mary, Kate and Ashley. The teenagers - Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo. And the oldest, Keanu, who isn't very smart, but they love him.

 

[Desert Dwellers]

To bring full closure to our trip report, I had to post some of our PhotoPass pictures. It was fun looking through the pics and re-living such a nice vacation.

An example of a fun border

The photographer had us do a silly pose in front of Tower of Terror.

A Magic Pose

More fun with borders

Highly recommend the PhotoPass CD. It was expensive, but a great way to get fun family photos that will be treasures for many years.

 

[wvnative]

You all look like you had a great time and what a good way to escape some of this heat.

It also sounds like you plan about like I do. lol I keep a "binder" on my PC along with packing lists and to do lists, etc. I add in new maps for other things we want to see each trip (I even added in the gas station this time so I could use the usual brand...lol), update the park hours and reservations, and include menus. I travel with a picky eater so it helps to have her look through them on our drive. Otherwise, it takes an additional 30 minutes for her to decide at each table service. lol I'll print and bind it a few days before we leave because I always end up making some sort of changes at the last minute. lol

Your photopass pics turned out well. Maybe we'll consider that next time.