Lagoongirl
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
- Messages
- 37
Day One
Characters:
Me- 41, Lucky Mom, Havent been to Disneyland in 12 years
Kylie, DD-5, 1st trip to Disneyland
Monday, September 12
Plan- Fly from SLC to San Diego, Spend the afternoon at the beach
If you are only interested in a Disney trip report, please move ahead to day 5. The first part of our trip was spent in San Diego and I will report on our activities there.
We have a tradition in our family that I take each of the kids on a Disney trip one on one. My DH hates amusement parks and crowds so he has kindly let me and my children use frequent flyer miles and hotel points to go to Disney parks several times over the last decade or so. We used to live in Omaha, Nebraska so I have always gone to WDW in the past and this is my first time taking a child to DLR. Kylie is my youngest so this may be our last trip unless I can convince DH that I need to start the rounds again.
I began this day at 6:00 a.m. and went on my morning bike ride. It was raining slightly when I left and it is starting to stay dark in the mornings here. I debated on whether to go to the gym instead to avoid the rain, but decided to chance it. About two miles into my ride, it started to rain harder, so I decided to turn around and head home. By the time I got home, I was drenched and cold. The reason I mention this is because I found it pretty amazing that I started my morning wet, cold and in the dark and I ended my day watching a beautiful sunset about 800 miles away. Sometimes we dont even think of the miracle of flying, but I remember watching the sunset and being in awe that just a few short hours before I had been in a completely different place and in completely different circumstances.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Our flight wasnt until late morning (11:20) and after getting my older children off to school, taking care of some final packing, and a stop at the bank we were on our way at 9:30 a.m. Check in went smoothly and after kisses and hugs and waves to Daddy at the security gates we were off on our adventure. Kylie wanted a smoothie so we made our first of many overpriced vacation purchases. We got a smoothie at TCBY in the airport for $6.23. A stop at Cinnabon for a warm cinnamon roll to eat on the flight was a necessity. ($3.00) We also bought a couple of candy bars and some gum for the flight ($4.29). We are certainly not worried about calories or money on vacation!!!!
The flight was right on time. Kylie enjoyed her first airplane ride and only fussed a little bit when we started to descend for landing. She couldnt get her ears to pop even though I had her chewing her gum. We picked up our bags at baggage claim without a hitch.
All car rental agencies in San Diego are off property so I began lugging the luggage to the shuttle. I had bought back packs with wheels before we left so that Kylie could help me with luggage. That is a draw back to being the only adult having to carry the luggage. I learned that from earlier trips so I bought the back packs. Kylie helped roll along one of the back packs while I stacked the stroller and the other backpack onto our big bag. The walk to the shuttles was not far so I managed okay. We picked up the car, which ended up being a Ford Taurus, and I realized that I had studied how to get to our hotel from the airport, not the car rental agency, so I asked the agent how to get to our hotel. She didnt seem familiar with the Hampton Inn so I pointed on a map to approximately where it was. She gave me a card with directions on it. It was difficult as she was Hispanic and Im not sure she could understand me any more than I could understand her. I always feel so rude when I have to ask people with accents to repeat themselves, but on the other hand, when they are working with the public, who may speak many different languages, they need to slow down their speech!!! I looked at the card she gave me and it seemed to me that it explained how to go the opposite direction of where I needed to go. I followed it anyway and figured out that indeed, I was going in the opposite direction of where I needed to go. So I turned around and managed to find the Hampton Inn right off of an exit.
I pulled in the parking lot and tried to pull the key out of the ignition to go check in. The key wouldnt pull out!!! I tried turning on the car again and turning it off. Still would not pull out. I tried putting it in Drive and then back into Park. It wouldnt pull out. I tried that again. It wouldnt pull out. I looked at my paperwork for a number to call. I felt stupid, but what could I do? So I called their Roadside Assistance number. He told me that the car was probably not all the way in Park and to put it in Drive and then back into Park. I told him I had done that twice already, but I did it again just to appease him. But, of course, this time the key came out. I know it came out just so it could make me look like an idiot!!!
We checked in and took our luggage to our room and unpacked. It felt so nice to finally be in our room!!! One bad thing about traveling without my husband is the navigating around places Im not familiar with, without a map reader to help me. I knew there would be many more times during this trip that I would feel that way, but wed gotten one of the major things behind us successfully (finding our hotel room).
We changed clothes and got in the car to drive up to La Jolla. We found a parking space by Childrens Beach and walked down to look at the seals. Kylie really liked them. We saw some in Oregon on vacation this summer, but we couldnt get as close so Kylie was much more interested in these. We stopped at the small beach just south of Childrens Beach and played tag with the big waves there. The waves were too big to swim in so we headed back to the car to drive up to La Jolla Shores Beach. I tried to find the sea caves, but there werent any obvious signs and parking wasnt that available so I just drove up to the beach.
La Jolla Shores Beach is very nice for families. The waves arent huge, but theyre not tiny either. There was plenty of parking, and nice playgrounds. We sat out our towels, took some pictures and called home to let them know of our safe arrival. Everyone was home from school by now. My 16 year old daughter was very jealous when she heard the waves crashing in the background. We played at the beach for two hours and then decided to go find somewhere to eat. One thing about La Jolla it seemed very residential. I could not see anywhere to eat. So I drove back to our hotel and we ate at a Dennys that was by our hotel.
We changed clothes and then headed to Mission Beach and Belmont Park. We bought tickets for the Merry Go Round because that was just about the only ride Kylie was tall enough to ride. We scurried over to the beach to watch the sunset and barely made it. As the sun was going down, I thought of how I had started my day so far away in the dark, in the rain, on my bike. We did some shopping and I bought my older daughters some shorts and pants with San Diego written on the butt and me some sunglasses.
We went back to our hotel and headed down to the pool. We were the only ones in it. The hot tub felt so good. I didnt realize how tense I was until the heat and those jets started soothing me. Ahhh!!!!
Our first day in California had come to an end and what a beautiful end it was.
Characters:
Me- 41, Lucky Mom, Havent been to Disneyland in 12 years
Kylie, DD-5, 1st trip to Disneyland
Monday, September 12
Plan- Fly from SLC to San Diego, Spend the afternoon at the beach
If you are only interested in a Disney trip report, please move ahead to day 5. The first part of our trip was spent in San Diego and I will report on our activities there.
We have a tradition in our family that I take each of the kids on a Disney trip one on one. My DH hates amusement parks and crowds so he has kindly let me and my children use frequent flyer miles and hotel points to go to Disney parks several times over the last decade or so. We used to live in Omaha, Nebraska so I have always gone to WDW in the past and this is my first time taking a child to DLR. Kylie is my youngest so this may be our last trip unless I can convince DH that I need to start the rounds again.
I began this day at 6:00 a.m. and went on my morning bike ride. It was raining slightly when I left and it is starting to stay dark in the mornings here. I debated on whether to go to the gym instead to avoid the rain, but decided to chance it. About two miles into my ride, it started to rain harder, so I decided to turn around and head home. By the time I got home, I was drenched and cold. The reason I mention this is because I found it pretty amazing that I started my morning wet, cold and in the dark and I ended my day watching a beautiful sunset about 800 miles away. Sometimes we dont even think of the miracle of flying, but I remember watching the sunset and being in awe that just a few short hours before I had been in a completely different place and in completely different circumstances.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Our flight wasnt until late morning (11:20) and after getting my older children off to school, taking care of some final packing, and a stop at the bank we were on our way at 9:30 a.m. Check in went smoothly and after kisses and hugs and waves to Daddy at the security gates we were off on our adventure. Kylie wanted a smoothie so we made our first of many overpriced vacation purchases. We got a smoothie at TCBY in the airport for $6.23. A stop at Cinnabon for a warm cinnamon roll to eat on the flight was a necessity. ($3.00) We also bought a couple of candy bars and some gum for the flight ($4.29). We are certainly not worried about calories or money on vacation!!!!
The flight was right on time. Kylie enjoyed her first airplane ride and only fussed a little bit when we started to descend for landing. She couldnt get her ears to pop even though I had her chewing her gum. We picked up our bags at baggage claim without a hitch.
All car rental agencies in San Diego are off property so I began lugging the luggage to the shuttle. I had bought back packs with wheels before we left so that Kylie could help me with luggage. That is a draw back to being the only adult having to carry the luggage. I learned that from earlier trips so I bought the back packs. Kylie helped roll along one of the back packs while I stacked the stroller and the other backpack onto our big bag. The walk to the shuttles was not far so I managed okay. We picked up the car, which ended up being a Ford Taurus, and I realized that I had studied how to get to our hotel from the airport, not the car rental agency, so I asked the agent how to get to our hotel. She didnt seem familiar with the Hampton Inn so I pointed on a map to approximately where it was. She gave me a card with directions on it. It was difficult as she was Hispanic and Im not sure she could understand me any more than I could understand her. I always feel so rude when I have to ask people with accents to repeat themselves, but on the other hand, when they are working with the public, who may speak many different languages, they need to slow down their speech!!! I looked at the card she gave me and it seemed to me that it explained how to go the opposite direction of where I needed to go. I followed it anyway and figured out that indeed, I was going in the opposite direction of where I needed to go. So I turned around and managed to find the Hampton Inn right off of an exit.
I pulled in the parking lot and tried to pull the key out of the ignition to go check in. The key wouldnt pull out!!! I tried turning on the car again and turning it off. Still would not pull out. I tried putting it in Drive and then back into Park. It wouldnt pull out. I tried that again. It wouldnt pull out. I looked at my paperwork for a number to call. I felt stupid, but what could I do? So I called their Roadside Assistance number. He told me that the car was probably not all the way in Park and to put it in Drive and then back into Park. I told him I had done that twice already, but I did it again just to appease him. But, of course, this time the key came out. I know it came out just so it could make me look like an idiot!!!
We checked in and took our luggage to our room and unpacked. It felt so nice to finally be in our room!!! One bad thing about traveling without my husband is the navigating around places Im not familiar with, without a map reader to help me. I knew there would be many more times during this trip that I would feel that way, but wed gotten one of the major things behind us successfully (finding our hotel room).
We changed clothes and got in the car to drive up to La Jolla. We found a parking space by Childrens Beach and walked down to look at the seals. Kylie really liked them. We saw some in Oregon on vacation this summer, but we couldnt get as close so Kylie was much more interested in these. We stopped at the small beach just south of Childrens Beach and played tag with the big waves there. The waves were too big to swim in so we headed back to the car to drive up to La Jolla Shores Beach. I tried to find the sea caves, but there werent any obvious signs and parking wasnt that available so I just drove up to the beach.
La Jolla Shores Beach is very nice for families. The waves arent huge, but theyre not tiny either. There was plenty of parking, and nice playgrounds. We sat out our towels, took some pictures and called home to let them know of our safe arrival. Everyone was home from school by now. My 16 year old daughter was very jealous when she heard the waves crashing in the background. We played at the beach for two hours and then decided to go find somewhere to eat. One thing about La Jolla it seemed very residential. I could not see anywhere to eat. So I drove back to our hotel and we ate at a Dennys that was by our hotel.
We changed clothes and then headed to Mission Beach and Belmont Park. We bought tickets for the Merry Go Round because that was just about the only ride Kylie was tall enough to ride. We scurried over to the beach to watch the sunset and barely made it. As the sun was going down, I thought of how I had started my day so far away in the dark, in the rain, on my bike. We did some shopping and I bought my older daughters some shorts and pants with San Diego written on the butt and me some sunglasses.
We went back to our hotel and headed down to the pool. We were the only ones in it. The hot tub felt so good. I didnt realize how tense I was until the heat and those jets started soothing me. Ahhh!!!!
Our first day in California had come to an end and what a beautiful end it was.
