(More than)A FIVE years of Trips! -- TR Started! Day One - updated 6/10

[hurleysweety]

All I have to say about today is that it was the best day ever. Rain was insane but it allowed us to do so much that we were in the parks for 13 hours today! No breaks. We were wet, dry, then wet again...haha. Hung out with our friends most of the day too. Kinda funny that we travelled 350 miles and hung out with friends that live 10 miles away. DH was the happiest I've seen him at Disney, especially at night.

For those planing future trips around rain, note that it doesn't rain foe long so layers are important. Best thing we had all day was a plastic bag to keep our wet umbrella in our backpack. Also, a ride on pirates or small world is a great way to dry off.

Can't wait to share my food porn, park pics and more.

Really hope we see some characters tomorrow! It isn't supposed to rain as much so I hope they come out :-( I assume they weren't out because of the rain?

Tomorrow we go home, which makes me sad, as we won't be back til April at the earliest (spring training starts in Jan).

Hope everyone else stayed dry today! Yay for low crowds!

 

[hurleysweety]

Yesterday was a blast! We're home now but I have some great memories. Like I posted before, Saturday was by far the best Disney day ever! I can't wait to start my TR and pictures and all. Maybe then I'll get some of you to write back and let me know you're reading? Guess I've left too many of these unfinished!!

Ahh...already can't wait to go back. Next trip will be planned around WoC!

 

[tksbaskets]

I'm glad you are having a good time. I'm looking forward to pictures when you get a chance. Cold??? Try wind chill of 14 this evening here. Burrr...

Thanks for posting!

 

[deejdigsdis]

OK...I'm ready for you to start now. I just finished my own TR and now I need to live vicariously through someone else's.

 

[hurleysweety]

Sorry for the lag in updates! I have quite the nasty cold right now. But as soon as I get better I will upload pictures as soon as I feel better!

 

[Seaera]

Can't wait to see the pictures! Hope you're feeling better soon.

 

[disneyland89]

I'm reading too....just haven't posted anything yet.

You guys are lucky to get to go to DLR during Christmas, I wish me and DF could go more. If you don't mind me asking where in AZ do you guys live, northern or southern?? DF and I live in Tucson area.

 

[Sherry E]

Yesterday was a blast! We're home now but I have some great memories. Like I posted before, Saturday was by far the best Disney day ever! I can't wait to start my TR and pictures and all. Maybe then I'll get some of you to write back and let me know you're reading? Guess I've left too many of these unfinished!!

Ahh...already can't wait to go back. Next trip will be planned around WoC!

I am here too! I am eager to hear all about it (and I hope you feel better soon). An idea: Maybe you should do one of the 'mega-reports' like Prettyprincessbelle, WazowskiLOVER and I have all done with ours - where we just combine all of our Pre-TRs and TRs into one ongoing, super duper, mega report that never ends. That way, everything is in one place and it is easy for people to find you and read the latest adventures at any given time. I have a feeling it may be the key to get more responses and have more folks follow along that way, rather than having separate unfinished Pre-TRs/TRs going at once. Also, this way, if someone new jumps on board the TR to read about the latest trip, they can also scroll back in the same TR and read about the previous trips and get a sense of who you are and get familiar with you.

Anyway, that just occurred to me when I read your comment about having too many unfinished TRs! If you want to make a super mega report, I can merge everything together into one, as long as I know where all the different TRs are!

 

[hurleysweety]

I am here too! I am eager to hear all about it (and I hope you feel better soon). An idea: Maybe you should do one of the 'mega-reports' like Prettyprincessbelle, WazowskiLOVER and I have all done with ours - where we just combine all of our Pre-TRs and TRs into one ongoing, super
duper, mega report that never
ends. That way, everything is in one place and it is easy for people to find you and read the latest adventures at any given time. I
have a feeling it may be the key to get more responses and have
more folks follow along that way, rather than having separate unfinished Pre-TRs/TRs going at once. Also, this way, if someone new jumps on board the TR to read about the latest trip, they can also scroll back in the same TR
and read about the previous trips and get a sense of who you are and get familiar with you.

Anyway, that just occurred to me when I read your comment about having too many unfinished TRs! If you want to make a super mega
report, I can merge everything together into one, as long as I
know where all the different TRs are!

That is a fantastic idea! So that's how you pros do it! I would love to have them all in one place. Can I include our disneyworld
honeymoon or just Disneyland reports? Now I know what I'll be doing tomorrow- finding my three unfinished TRs!

To everyone else, this flu/cold has taken the best of me, but I'm hoping after sleeping tonight that I should be all ready to start my trip report tomorrow! I promise!!!

 

[hurleysweety]

I'm reading too....just haven't posted anything yet.

You guys are lucky to get to go to DLR during Christmas, I wish me and DF could go more. If you don't mind me asking where in AZ do you guys live, northern or southern?? DF and I live in Tucson area.

No worries in asking! We live up in the Phoenix area, but always wish we lived closer to disney! How long of a drive is it for you guys? I don't know tucson well, so I don't know how the drive is...My DH claims we could do it in about 5 hours if we didn't stop! I think he's
crazy. It's a good 5.5 hours. Hope you get to go soon-or at least plan a trip!

 

[hurleysweety]

Can't wait to see the pictures! Hope you're feeling better soon.

Thanks! I hope to feel better too!



Also, I'm using the e-ticket app, so I can't do multiple-quote incase anyone was wondering!

 

[QueenDoOver]

Yesterday was a blast! We're home now but I have some great memories. Like I posted before, Saturday was by far the best Disney day ever! I can't wait to start my TR and pictures and all. Maybe then I'll get some of you to write back and let me know you're reading? Guess I've left too many of these unfinished!!

Ahh...already can't wait to go back. Next trip will be planned around WoC!

I'm reading too! Sounds like you had a really great time, and I can' t wait to see the pics.

 

[Sherry E]

That is a fantastic idea! So that's how you pros do it! I would love to have them all in one place. Can I include our disneyworld
honeymoon or just Disneyland reports? Now I know what I'll be doing tomorrow- finding my three unfinished TRs!

To everyone else, this flu/cold has taken the best of me, but I'm hoping after sleeping tonight that I should be all ready to start my trip report tomorrow! I promise!!!

As much as I think we all would love to see the honeymoon WDW TR included in this one too (just because it would be more fun!), I guess technically it should be separate and stay in the WDW section of the board. But all the DLR TRs and Pre-TRs you have, I can put all of those together. And when I merge them, they will automatically fall into sequence for the most part. So when you find them, if you can copy the links to all the ones you want merged together and PM them to me, I will put them all together into one super-duper mega report! I will be at DLR tomorrow (sadly, only for one day, but better than nothing) so I can merge them either today or Sunday for you!

 

[disneyland89]

No worries in asking! We live up in the Phoenix area, but always wish we lived closer to disney! How long of a drive is it for you guys? I don't know tucson well, so I don't know how the drive is...My DH claims we could do it in about 5 hours if we didn't stop! I think he's
crazy. It's a good 5.5 hours. Hope you get to go soon-or at least plan a trip!

Wll our drive is about an hour and a half longer than yours because we have to drive all the way up to Phoenix. Last time it took us about 7 hours. BUt our GPS also had us go through this little town which slowed us up a lot too.

And we are definatly planning our next trip. Its not till June, but its going to be the best trip! We're getting married at the Grand Californian ant then honeymooning there too.

 

[hurleysweety]

Wll our drive is about an hour and a half longer than yours because we have to drive all the way up to Phoenix. Last time it took us about 7 hours. BUt our GPS also had us go through this little town which slowed us up a lot too.

And we are definatly planning our next trip. Its not till June, but its going to be the best trip! We're getting married at the Grand Californian ant then honeymooning there too.

YAY! WEDDING! We didn't get married at Disney (sooo wish it could've happened!), but we did make it to WDW for our honeymoon. I can't wait to hear more about this trip and wedding and honeymoon. How much fun!!!

 

[hurleysweety]

Wow...I can't believe that one week ago we were at Disneyland in the cold/sprinkles through the night. Well...I believe we only made it til 10 PM on Friday...too tired to carry on!

I can't wait to share all my pictures with you. I forgot my camera cord, so I was more particular about what pictures I took and which I deleted along the way to allow for more. In about 48 hours at Disney, I captured over 200+ photos, which is a small amount for me. I know, I'm a little nuts.

But I thought I should share this, before we left we had a cookie party with our students (we're youth leaders at church) and I had a good 100+ sugar cookies at my house. We sent most home with the kids, but I made a few myself after they left...sorry its so yellow. Too lazy to edit just the one photo for ya'll!

 

[tksbaskets]

Wow...I can't believe that one week ago we were at Disneyland in the cold/sprinkles through the night. Well...I believe we only made it til 10 PM on Friday...too tired to carry on!

I can't wait to share all my pictures with you. I forgot my camera cord, so I was more particular about what pictures I took and which I deleted along the way to allow for more. In about 48 hours at Disney, I captured over 200+ photos, which is a small amount for me. I know, I'm a little nuts.

But I thought I should share this, before we left we had a cookie party with our students (we're youth leaders at church) and I had a good 100+ sugar cookies at my house. We sent most home with the kids, but I made a few myself after they left...sorry its so yellow. Too lazy to edit just the one photo for ya'll!

You're not nuts I bring along two extra memory cards when we go to Disney and average about 400 pics for a week. Snap on! Can I have a cookie? Looks yummy!

 

[hurleysweety]

~ Day 1 ~

We had a rough start Friday morning, December 11th. I was a little grumpy. Go figure??! I'm going to Disneyland and I'm an unprepared mess and driving DH nuts which means...well things could have gone better. I seriously was naming off things that I forgot as we were pulling onto the freeway. For those of you women out there who are newlyweds or about to be, naming off things you forgot to do, bring, plan, etc, is not helpful to a driving DH. But after a stop to get some food at Chic-fil-A, things were much better.

Sorry...had to take a bite first - here's my chicken biscuit. YUM!

Somehow I managed to find time between laundry, packing, cleaning, and sleeping the night before to make up my planning journal with park events, times, things to do, dining info, directions, hotel stuff, ect. Here are a couple pics I shot along the way...

We left around 6:15, running late, and arrived around 10:45 in Anaheim, also gaining an hour crossing time zones, so a total of a 5 1/2 hr trip. We were at the parking garage by 11 and on our ways to the tram around 11:15.

We approached the park super excited. We couldn't wait to get inside. The Christmas music was playing but we noticed something. It was way more decorated for Halloween?! On the trams ride, there were two areas decorated for Halloween, none for Christmas. Also, I expected more decor in DTD, afterall its kinda like an outdoor mall, and the malls here are decked to the max! I was so glad to see all the decor when I got in the park.

Then we headed down main street with one thing on our minds - let's eat! I made no dining plans this trip since it was short, and weather was gonna be a definite factor. Afterall, it was almost 12:30 our time and we hadn't eaten in a good six hours. On the way, they were doing some type of entertainment. Couldn't figure it out though - 11:30 on a Friday morning?

We were so happy because we quickly noticed the lack of crowds. NO one was in the park for it being a Friday and the park having been open for almost two hours. I wanted to check out the times to get more of a realistic idea of the crowds. Here is the picture I took.

We headed toward Tomorrowland and immediately I suggested Redd Rockets because DH claims they have the best Chicken caesar, and although I've only ever snagged a few bites and couple croutons! He was of course completely in agreement and ready to eat that second. I also noticed that Tomorrowland lacks any Christmas decor. It might as well have been any other time of year...

I was going to get the chicken pasta, but the line was long??? I've never seen a line here. Although there was a group/large family in front of me who was having trouble understanding how the whole concept of walk and pick up your food and walk away worked. Apparently it is very confusing... So I settled for the supreme pizza which included all kinds of stuff - totally my style!

Also, I love Redd Rockets because I can get a giant size fountain drink cup with ice water and they don't care how many times I refill it.

After that we headed over to BTMRR where we waited for about 10 minutes to get on the ride. Ten minutes at 12:30....not what I expected! I took a really cool pic while we were waiting in line.

After that I wanted to head over to see the "Reindeer" since I had no idea this part ever existed in previous visits. We took some PP pics in the sleigh and then had a good laugh at the "reindeer."

And then I snapped a quick pic of Celebration Roundup and BBQ. It was really decorated!

Before we left Disneyland for the afternoon, we got a pic in front of the castle. Turned out pretty good!

More crowds were coming in as we headed out, and you can see that the weather wasn't the best.


Next up...headed over to California Adventure!

 

[Eeee-va]

Great castle pic--it's so deserted! I loved your notebook too--wow!

 

[hurleysweety]

Great castle pic--it's so deserted! I loved your notebook too--wow!

I know! I love the random CM in the background and the mom taking the picture of her family. Classic.