Marceline to Disneyland, Following in Walt's Footsteps...

[KCmike]

Glad to hear you made it. Hope you all have a great time!

Just wondering though. On the $100 per person was it a refund per person or credit for future flights? Just wondering in case it ever happened to us.

 

[disneykiwi]

Arthur

thats rotten luck about the plane being taken - never heard of that happening before. Ugh 11 hours with littlies in the airport - you poor things.

Hope you are there now and enjoying your trip.

 

[burly]

I'm jumping on board, if you don't mind.
Have fun!!!

 

[arthur06]

We made it home!

Tonight will be the first night in our own bed in about 9 days...

I will start the TR tomorrow, but will leave a few pics tonight, I have a lot of pics, and haven't had time to make any adjustments to them...

 

[KCmike]

Welcome back. Can't wait to hear how it all went!

 

[disneykiwi]

Welcome home Arthur

Great photos - looking forward to hearing about your travels.

 

[sftoanaheim]

Can't wait to read more of this! Love to see new TRs

 

[KCmike]

Arthur hope your doing ok?

 

[arthur06]

Arthur hope your doing ok?

Yes, I am doing fine. Life just took a detour the last couple of weeks. I was driving and was rear ended by a semi. The damage was pretty minimal, but I was working at the time and in a Fleet Vehicle. So, drug test, reports, phone calls, more reports, car to the shop, more reports, well you get the idea.

Anyway, on to the TR.

Day 1 - Saturday November 3, 2012

We arrived later in the evening than we were expecting. We had our plan taken from us by Southwest. So, after a 3 hour delay, a stop in Phoenix, then a stop in Las Vegas, we arrived in Orange County.

No, issues with the rental car. No issues with traffic, but we were tired. We headed straight to the Fairfield Inn on South Harbour. The location was pretty awesome.

I have some family in the Riverside area, so they were planning on meeting us for dinner on Saturday Night. With the flight delay, we were tempted to call them and postpone our dinner for another night. But, we barely had made it into the room and the phone rang, they were in the parking lot ready to see us.

So, we invited them up, visited for an hour or so then headed off to dinner. We went out to Benihana's. It isn't anything that we have around here, so it was really a fun and unique experience that was new to us. We had the Steak and Chicken dinner. The steak was very good, but the chicken was just average. The show was not as good as I was expecting. The table next to us, seemed to have a better Chef, so I watched there show a bit.

After dinner, we went our separate ways and agreed to meet them another night. It was close to 11pm local time, so it was close to 1am by our bodies. And with a 5 and 4 year old, that was a long time with no nap!

I promise that I will get this trip report and pictures going at a better speed coming up. I will do the Sunday update tonight. I promise!!!

 

[arthur06]

Do they give you some kind of comp for the troubles?

How was the night before? Did you get to the movies or Marceline?

We did not make it to Marceline, in fact, we left a little later then we hoped, so we found a BBQ place in KC close to the airport. I don't recall the name, but it was not a franchise. We just enjoyed our meal and did not make it to the movie before our trip.

That being said, we did make it to see Wreck-It Ralph. We enjoyed the movie. I was hoping for a little bit more. We are gamers and movie lovers and a movie that crossed those genres was right up our alley. The kids loved the movie, especially Vanillape. There were a lot of parts that I chuckled and we had a fun couple of hours, but I wouldn't consider the movie fantastic.

Glad to hear you made it. Hope you all have a great time!

Just wondering though. On the $100 per person was it a refund per person or credit for future flights? Just wondering in case it ever happened to us.

We received a voucher for $100 off a future flight that has to be used within one year. It hardly was worth it for the major inconvenience with 2 small children, but the did pretty good all things considered. DW made out like a bandit on the deal. She received a complimentary adult beverage on each leg of the flight.

I'm jumping on board, if you don't mind.
Have fun!!!

I don't mind at all, hope that I can give you a good TR, now that I have it going.

 

[arthur06]

Day 2 - Sunday, November 4, 2012

This would be our first day in the parks!

We slept in, the day before was brutal on us. Today's high was 95 degrees. So the plan was parks in the morning. Midday swim/nap and return to the parks int he evening.

We never really made any concrete plans as to what days were what parks, we just went when and where we felt at the time. We have found that too rigid of plans, ADR's and stuff with small children become to much hassle.

We asked the boys where they wanted to go first, Disneyland or Radiator Springs. The whole basis of this trip was Carsland, so there answer was pretty predictable.

We spent so much time in Carsland today. We rode RSR, it was about a 45 min wait, so we just enjoyed the que area and took lots of pics of CL and RSR line. Here are some of those pics...

 

[arthur06]

Day 2 (cont.)

We were able to ride RSR and MJJ with minimal waits each time. Spent some time looking in the stores, exploring the nooks and crannies of CL.

I have heard many great reviews of Flo's so we decided to try it. We were not disappointed. The meats were very flavorful, the potatoes and gravy were just to our liking. My kids are big steak eaters. So, given the choice of a kids meal, or steak, they chose the steak dinner and shared an adult meal.

We stayed at CL for about 4 hours between eating, rides and the shops.

We headed back to the room as it was getting very warm and decided to spend some time swimming. I will spare you the pics of me in my swimwear!

So after swimming we went to the room to rest and cool down. Little did we know that our nap would be about 3 hours!!! So instead of going back to the parks later that night, we decided to walk to downtown Disney for some supper and shopping. DW was dreading going back to the parks as she was tired. But, when shopping was brought up, boy did she get a second wind!

Can't really think of anything more that happened on Sunday. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Glad to see you back on the Dis.

Hope things are okay with you after the little bingle with the semi.

 

[KCmike]

Its crazy how life can throw you a curve ball every now and again. Sorry to hear about the troubles when you got home.

There's a couple places up north for BBQ (I laugh when I say a couple) because there's more BBQ joints than McDonalds in this city. There's one in Zona Rosa called Smokehouse which is probably the best up north. Hope you didn't have to eat at a place called Smokebox.

My kids have seen Wreck it Ralph and they reported the say review as you. I might not go see it now. This is crazy talk as I don't miss any Disney/Pixar film but I think I will wait. I have been going to the movies alot lately and spending alot of money on them. I've seen Life of Pi, Skyfall, and Lincoln. All were very good in my opinion.

I will keep an eye out for the Sunday report.

Take Care.

Great start by the way!

 

[arthur06]

Its crazy how life can throw you a curve ball every now and again. Sorry to hear about the troubles when you got home.

There's a couple places up north for BBQ (I laugh when I say a couple) because there's more BBQ joints than McDonalds in this city. There's one in Zona Rosa called Smokehouse which is probably the best up north. Hope you didn't have to eat at a place called Smokebox.

My kids have seen Wreck it Ralph and they reported the say review as you. I might not go see it now. This is crazy talk as I don't miss any Disney/Pixar film but I think I will wait. I have been going to the movies alot lately and spending alot of money on them. I've seen Life of Pi, Skyfall, and Lincoln. All were very good in my opinion.

I will keep an eye out for the Sunday report.

Take Care.

Great start by the way!

We have a theater close to home for us. They charge $2 to get in every day except Friday and Saturday. So, we have been going there for a cheap night at the movies. They only have 1 screen, and New Releases are about 2 weeks behind there release date.

 

[KCmike]

We have a theater close to home for us. They charge $2 to get in every day except Friday and Saturday. So, we have been going there for a cheap night at the movies. They only have 1 screen, and New Releases are about 2 weeks behind there release date.

That's awesome. Beats paying $10 by me. I think our AMC does have $5 times but they're before Noon each day.

 

[lilpooh108]

Following along. Looking forward to pics of VGC.

 

[arthur06]

Day #3 - Monday - November 5, 2012

We had planned on meeting my uncle and his family at DL for the day, but they couldn't make it today.

It was another hot day. We planned to hit DL for a few hours in the morning and then head back to the room for a swim...

Here is Kelton ready to go...

And Kyler ready to go...

Mickey is in the band...

Kyler was a pretty good driver...

That is Kelton and Mom in front of us, she claims he wasn't a good driver. A call to 1-800-Injury might be in order...

After Autotopia we headed over to the Submarine Voyage...

idk why, but I really like this pic...

After a few more rides, we headed back for some pool time. Later that night, we decided to head back over to CA for some non Cars Land time.

the boys really loves TSM, it was Kelton's favorite ride the whole trip...

on the way out, they wanted to look at Carsland again...
OMG, It was Mater!!!

 

[arthur06]

Day #4 - Tuesday - November 6, 2012

This was the day my wife had circled as her "must do"!

We were off to Hollywood!

We started with a tour of Hollywood on an open air van.

Here is mom and the boys outside Madame Tusauds...

Mom and Johnny Depp...

Someone borrowed our rental car...

And our other one...

Beverly Wilshire, used in Pretty Woman...

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air house...

Ronald Regan's home...

A view of LA...

A couple of boys blocking my view...

Hollywood!

I have hundred of pics or Celebrity homes. I won't post any unless someone wants a specific one.

I will post the 2nd half of the day in the next post...

 

[arthur06]

Day 4 - (cont.)

After the tour, we headed to Madame Tusauds.

The boys with Spiderman...

Kelton, love his smile on the bike...

We love the movie "Shawshank Redemption", so the chance for the boys to get there picture with "Fuzzy Britches" was to much to pass up. I think that this is mom's favorite pic from the whole trip...

I like this one...

Maybe an American Idol winner in the future???

Here are some from Grauman Theater...

We love Opie...

After looking around the theatre, we walked down to...

We spent a little time in some of the shops and browsing around the area, but quickly found that Hollywood after dark is a little rough for our liking. So, we headed back to the car and onto the 5 and headed back to our room.

It was a great day, but something we felt like we only need to experience that once.