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

[disneynerd420]

I'm loving your TR. I can't wait to find out more! Tell me more!

That is sooo cool for you to get a room upgrade!

 

[cinderella-princess]

I love your TR so far! Congratulations on your one year anniversary and your room upgrade! The suite looks so wonderful - I'm uber jealous.

When we stayed at the GCH on our honeymoon I bought the robe and it wasn't too bad - $75 or so plus a few more dollars to get it monogrammed. I can't wait to find out where you went to dinner!!!

 

[hurleysweety]

I love your TR so far! Congratulations on your one year anniversary and your room upgrade! The suite looks so wonderful - I'm uber jealous.

When we stayed at the GCH on our honeymoon I bought the robe and it wasn't too bad - $75 or so plus a few more dollars to get it monogrammed. I can't wait to find out where you went to dinner!!!

Thanks! I guess $75 isn't too bad when you think about the quality you're getting. I don't think I would get enough use out of it, but it looked super luxurious!

I'm loving your TR. I can't wait to find out more! Tell me more!

That is sooo cool for you to get a room upgrade!

Thanks! I told DH that this weekend I'm completing my TR if nothing else - who cares if the house isn't clean and I have nothing to wear because I didn't do the laundry?

Oh, haha, I meant where did you go for dinner?

LOL, I totally knew that - I think I was hung up on work at the moment. Its coming, I promise, as soon as I have some free time tonight I will get up the rest of Day 1! I feel like I have everyone all excited and I'm sure it will be fun to read (er...look at - yummy food porn!).

 

[hurleysweety]

So we're headed towards DCA entrance from the hotel and we pass Storytellers and are headed towards Napa Rose when he asks where DTD entrance is - so I direct him towards it.

So we turn around to head back to go through the lobby and I'm a little disapointed, becuase we're not going to Napa Rose. But a little relieved too, because I would want to be more dressed up and I would have wanted to make a plan to sit at the chef's table and well - frankly I don't know all that much about it, so I wouldn't know what to order to any special tips - so whatever. I'm also glad we're not going to WCT, as I don't see it as a "celebration" type of place as my parents love to eat lunch there, so its like a nice family restaurant to me!

So now, we are on our way to DTD...

"Just kidding...we're eating here!" DH turns and smiles as we enter into Storytellers. I'm so excited!!!
1) I've never eaten here, and I love trying new things.
2) Not leaving the hotel was a major plus - I wanted to experience all parts of it.
3) I've heard excellent reviews on the food.
4) I knew the prices, and was totally comfortable with the price range!
5) It was a surprise, which makes anything better to me


It was pretty quiet inside and one of the first things I noticed was the lovely decor. Just beautiful!

Then we sat down and were handed two menus. One was the usual menu, apps, salads, entrees. Then on top, there was a dinner buffet menu. A buffet? A DISNEY buffet? Well we hadn't eaten much all day, so it took us about 3 minutes to decide on the buffet. Here is a pictures of the menu to give you an idea of all the goodness it included.

And the drink menu too:

After we told the waiter we wanted the buffet, he told us we could help ourselves. Fresh rolls were also brought to the table, before we even ordered if I remember right.

And off to the buffet we went! Now, I will say this buffet is much smaller than others I have seen posted on the site. And compared to the only buffet I've been to WDW, it is much much smaller than BOMA. BUT, you don't even notice - because all the food is SOO good. And, it was weird - it was like they were only serving mine and DH's most favorite foods!
First, the cold stuff - a pasta salad, and fruit salad. They also had other fruit available like peaches and apples, if I remember right.

Then salad, they also had a caesar salad as well.

And then the "kids" part with Chicken breast nuggets and mac n cheese.

Garlic Mashed potatoes and Asparagus.

And then DH was getting a little ticked of all the pics, and I forgot to go back later for more. But I took pics of our plates!

The buffet was then followed by this delicious four cheese pesto tortellini. This, by itself was like $18 on the menu.

And then came the protein!
They had Teryaki glazed Salmon, BBQ chicken, Carved Roasted Turkey, and Carved New Your Strip Loin. They also had a "Chef's special, which was some sort of fried asian type thing??
Here was the carved turkey:

And now our plates!

The super awesome pasta kinda blends with the potatoes, but you can kinda see a glimpse of it.
Dh's plate - you can see the perfectly grilled new york strip under the turkey. He also has salmon there too.

And my second plate - I got it right after a new batch of mac n cheese, and it was kinda runny, so I didn't eat much of it. More tortellin though and salmon, those were the best things there. And also, there is that asian thing??

And Dh's 2nd plate, you can tell what his favs were

 

[hurleysweety]

And then desserts!

The most delicious strawberries! The square mousse thing was not very good...

And mini cheesecake too.

Then I went back for bread pudding, because I had never tried it. I thought it tasted pretty good.

I then found out that you could have requested chocolate lava cake with ice cream - but after all these deserts, I was full! We had heard about the cake and ice cream, but thought it was extra. So, oh well, maybe next time! Here was someone else's, freshly made, waiting to be picked up.

And then, they brought us a special little cupcake!

DH commented, "Oh good, they knew I wanted pink and purple!" so sarcastic!
The frosting was so good, buttercream if I remember right. And the cake part was a strawberry like cake, super moist!

Our collection of desserts!

And then, we got the waiter to take a picture of us. Happy Anniversary!

 

[QueenDoOver]

Wow, great dinner. It looks like all of my favorites too. Tried to read the menu, but it was too small for my tired eyes. Does the price say $26 or $36 for adults? Thanks for the great pics.

 

[hurleysweety]

Wow, great dinner. It looks like all of my favorites too. Tried to read the menu, but it was too small for my tired eyes. Does the price say $26 or $36 for adults? Thanks for the great pics.

Oh, I'm sorry! It was $26. And in much smaller print on the bottom of the menu it said something like, "Menu-03-Fri, Sat, Sun" so I'm not sure if this is a regular offering.

 

[DLR29]

What happened to the report????

 

[blabbermouth]

a girl leaves for two weeks and a trip report disappears! Storytellers looks really good! Hope everything is ok with you guys. I'm going to start my trip report soon, so hope to see you reading

 

[hurleysweety]

Welcome!

Thanks for reading! I'm so excited to get this started. Its going to be an awesome trip (to Disney) and hopefully an awesome trip report too. I like to ramble and go competely off-topic so I hope you enjoy reading my posts. I yet to truly finish a trip report. I've been on three trips (2 to DLR, 1 to WDW) since I joined - and its just not happened. I think I get too sad about not being there and writing about it makes me really happy at first. I like posting all the pictures and talking about the food - and then life moves on. I hate that!!

But here I am, yet again, getting ready for another trip! We leave in 22 days!

More details to come...

 

[QueenDoOver]

Well, I wil happily encourage you to finish. I also have started a few and not finished. I have started another one for my Oct trip and am determined to finish that report no matter what! Hope you have a fabulous trip!

 

[cinderella-princess]

You are going back!! Yay!!

I've read a couple of your other TR and have enjoyed them (even without any endings ). I can't wait to read this one!

 

[hurleysweety]

So here are the details:

Cast:
Me 23, Graphic Designer - I'm not really that high maintenance princess type, I just enjoy being a girl and love shopping (especially if its on sale!).
DH 25, Insurance Broker(full time) and Milwaukee Brewers spring training operations manager (part time, and yes, thats the full title ) - He has the 3D glasses because he loves that darn toy story ride - he's pretty opposite of the gamer/computer guy type, but this smiley fit him best!

Dates:
September 26 - Oct 1 (actually in Disneyland)
Oct 1- Oct 4 (Huntington Beach area, if we can find a hotel!)

Hotels:
Okay, so its just the two of us and we like to save money, but we like quality. We also LOVE LOVE LOVE the GCH after staying there for our one year wedding anniversary last May. So after months of talking and a few...hundred conversations later, here is our current hotel plans.
Night of:
Sept 26-27 - Marriott Anaheim Suites - Priceline rate - $44!!
Sept 28 - Paradise Pier - AP rate
Sept 29 - 30 - GCH!!!! - AP rate
Oct 1 - 3 - undecided

Travel plans:
Saturday - Leave at 6 AM from AZ for DLR. Arrive around 11:30 - check in at hotel (has never been a big deal to check-in early here).
Monday morning - Pack up and head to paradise pier - check baggage to their storage facility and check-in at the right later in the afternoon.
Tuesday morning - Pack up and head to GRAND CALIFORNIAN! and check baggage to storage facility and come back later to check in
Thursday - stay at Grand Californian as Loooong as possible then check out and head to our "undecided, non-existent" hotel for next 3 nights.
Sunday - head back home (sadly) to AZ

Anyone else catch that we're staying 3 nights, the longest hotel stay we'll have on our trip, at a hotel that we don't even no where it is or how much it will cost yet. Yup, we're crazy. We don't have kids, so things like this aren't as important - especially to DH. He'd probably sleep in the car if I was okay with it!

 

[hurleysweety]

Well, I wil happily encourage you to finish. I also have started a few and not finished. I have started another one for my Oct trip and am determined to finish that report no matter what! Hope you have a fabulous trip!

Welcome!!! And Thanks! I'm trying to be more determined! Using positive thoughts and visualizing it and.... But seriously, its for my own good that I actually finish it!

You are going back!! Yay!!

I've read a couple of your other TR and have enjoyed them (even without any endings ). I can't wait to read this one!

Aw thanks! And welcome to the report!

Well lets see...very quickly here we'll finish those other ones. How about...and they all lived happily ever after? Yes, I prefer that one.

 

[cinderella-princess]

Well lets see...very quickly here we'll finish those other ones. How about...and they all lived happily ever after? Yes, I prefer that one.

You've got to love a good happily ever after! That sounds like the perfect ending to me.

 

[hurleysweety]

I don't know what we're gonna do...

Seems a 3-night stay at Huntington is a little out of budget for us - unless we stay at a 1 or 2 star hotel and pay $70/night! No thank you!

I've done a LOT of priceline research for that area, and there are a good six 4* hotels there, but the reviews are trip advisor are soo mixed, I really don't know if I can risk it. Also - there are ridiculous mandatory valets for the hotel parking lot ($25/day!) and resort fees ($16-20/day) and most of those resort fees want $10 for wi-fi each night too. So even if we landed a 4* that got good reviews on trip advisor for around $60-70/night, we'd end up paying $115/night + tax!

AHHH!!! We're too spoiled here in the disneyland area with such amazing priceline 3.5* rates!!!

So we are hotel-less for 3 nights...what are we going to do???!!!

 

[2wildchildzmom]

See you there!! We will be in DL those exact dates!!

 

[hurleysweety]

I think I'll change this trip report title to, "We like vacations. We like to change our plans."
Yes, our plans are changing for the last 3 nights....again!

So after a lot of discussion, we are not staying in Huntington Beach . Its going to cost too much compared to other places we could stay. And, an ocean view room is probably not going to happen with priceline - which after a lot of researching, was the only real reason I wanted to stay there. After all, its only 15 miles from Disneyland - so why not stay in Anaheim??

So today I started my bidding on Priceline - 3 star hotel for $35, and then a free rebid at $40. Nothing. So tomorrow, I'll bid $42 and $44. Bidding on the 3 star to hopefully get a hotel closer to the park - although we could easily end up at a 3.5 star again. Oh well. Its not like the Marriott or Hyatt down Harbor is bad, I would just love to have a free breakfast or walk to the park if possible - if that means a lower "quality" hotel.

Dining Plans?
In the mean time, I'm trying to get dining underway --- I know where we want to eat and for what meal we want to eat there, its just scheduling it according to where we'll be, and that is just plan hard! Who knows where in the park we'll be on Wednesday for lunch. Maybe we'll be in the room taking a nap so a short walk down to Whitewater snacks would be awesome. But maybe we're in the car on Sunday driving back to the hotel for a nap and we catch lunch at Subway.

And then there are park hours, and all those times that DH and I just unexpectedly have turkey legs at 4 in the afternoon and "forget" that we have reservations for dinner at 6. Whoops...That happened last trip. Well DH had a turkey leg and I had some bites and a smoothie. Then we saw Aladdin and then high-tailed it over to ESPN Zone only to discover halfway through this "birthday" meal, that DH wasn't really even that hungry. Awesome. It was crowded and noisy over that big Lakers game in May and we just weren't feeling it (DH is quite the sports fan and I usually really enjoy those sports watching noisy crowded atmospheres. But when you're not in the mood...it can be a little obnoxious!)


So where are we staying for the 3 extra nights? I don't know.
When are we eating at each place? No idea.
Yup, I'm a great trip reporter...

 

[hurleysweety]

See you there!! We will be in DL those exact dates!!

Yay! We'll see you there. Its coming up so fast!

 

[disneynerd420]

I'll be there too... Maybe we will run into each other. Looking forward to reading more about your planning.