Yes our road trip has us leaving July 1st. We should get to DL sometime around July 7th. We will be there for just a couple of days before continuing on around the country. I hope gas doesnt shoot up to much before then.
Jason - The way the gas prices are looking right now, it's pretty grim! But maybe they won't be as hideous by the time July gets here. Road trips are too fun to miss out on!
Again, I really appreciate that you found and followed my trip report - there are so many great ones out there to follow.
Holy moly, whaaaaa?
I finished up the calendar. It was fun, but it made me wish I had a HUGE monitor so I could see what it would look like at 12x12.
Molly - I thought I mentioned that debacle to you last year. Some friend of a friend of a friend on Facebook (someone who I had never heard of before and who was NOT on my Friend list) got into my photo albums and decided to swipe a couple hundred of my old Poison photos...which I was sharing with only the people on my Friend list (and I keep that number fairly low for a reason - so I know who everyone is!) because they were people I knew back in the day when they worked for Bret & Co. too (they were old Poison road crew guys that lived with the boys during the lean years or they were other friends I made through those people). This idiot got hold of them and decided he liked them and couldn't keep them to himself.
Honestly, it boils my blood to think of that whole episode, so I will quickly change the subject before I go hurling something out a window.

Have you received your calendar yet, Molly? If so, do you like it? I know you've had a lot on your mind with your brother and all, so I'm surprised you were able to finish it up at all.
I'll be interested to hear what you think of your calendar. So far, I like both of mine. Mariezp likes hers. Tksbaskets likes hers. Funatdisney/Liza likes it well enough but the quality of the photos wasn't good in her calendar.
And deejdigsdis is still waiting on her calendar, so we don't have that verdict yet.
I'm not sure if Michele/kaoden39 ordered 2 calendars or only one, and last I heard, Tania/Tdashgirl was loading photos to Snapfish at the last minute to whip up a calendar.
I don't think Jazz/Belle Ella ever ended up making a calendar.
Anyone else out there order one?? I have to say that Snapfish did a good job of luring me in with the free deal. That's the way to do it to get new clients. Offer a good product for free - or for an extremely discounted price - and then you entice people to want to actually
pay for that same product again in the future.
Now that I've seen what a good quality & size calendar it is, and how you can add in tiny photos on the actual date/reminder pages(which I didn't do for either if mine), I might actually order another one for 2012 at full price (depends on what sorts of photos I take this year). I think it's a much better calendar than the Shutterfly one I got last year.
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So....here is a little bit of a DLR trip update!!

First of all, my friend was saying the other day that she wanted to bring her son to DLR for a day in early April. I told her that she will not be able to see all the things she wants to see (for her son) in one day - especially since she is not willing to get up early and get to the park when it opens. You can't walk into
Disneyland at 12 p.m., expecting to leave/go home at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., and do everything in Fantasyland, everything in A Bug's Land, Monster's, Inc. TSMM, Animation Building, King Triton's Carousel, ToonTown, Jungle Cruise, BLAB, meet characters, buy a Duffy, etc. It just won't happen. You need to stay overnight and add another day to the trip, and/or you need to be willing to get to DL when it opens.
So I think I talked my friend out of going to DLR for that day trip. I told her that, honestly, unless she was getting free tickets, I didn't think it would be worth it to try for her son's first DLR trip. He will see lots of stuff that excites him, most likely, and there won't be enough time for it all.
As for me - it's now March. In six months, Halloween Time will start. On which date it will start, we don't yet know. But it will be in September. And 6 months will fly by.
I have to start thinking about what I want to do for Halloween at DLR, and how it will impact a Christmas trip. As everyone knows who has been following along with my ongoing TR from the beginning, I don't go to DLR often at all

, and my trips are very non-spontaneous most of the time. Because of money and transportation issues and wishy-washy friends, the trips have to be planned or at least thought about way in advance.
As everyone also knows, the holiday season at DLR is my favorite and, thus, my priority. So I really think I should use my free night at the Paradise Pier Hotel and the $99 per night rate for a holiday trip - hopefully one that is a bit longer than last year's trip. Even if I make it 4 nights instead of 3, I think I need something longer.
I cannot guarantee that I will nab any other kind of good discount for a DLR hotel like I did last year. I don't even know if I will be renewing the AP when it expires in November. And if I do, there's no telling if there will be any "good" AP rates for any of the DLR hotels in December. So this Free Night/$99 per night deal may be the best thing I get for the whole year, and I feel like I should use it for a December trip.
The dilemma is that I would like to do the Halloween party this year. It makes sense to have a hotel room to stay in that night. But I don't need to really do 3 nights or 4 nights for Halloween Time if money is not flowing. And I don't want to waste money on mone night in any hotel (even HoJo's) if it's not mandatory.
So I have to start really looking at the calendar and thinking about which dates I have in mind for Halloween Time and Christmas time and start working towards a goal of making those dates.
I decided that this weekend I am going to call that Special Events phone number that I have to call to make my PPH reservation. I'm going to get the scoop from them about which dates are blocked from using discounts (certain holiday periods, but
when exactly is what I need to know). That will help narrow down (a little bit) which dates I can or cannot go.
I also want to find out if Special Events has any different requirements for reservations from what the other Central/Room-Only Reservations people have, i.e., do they need the entire amount of the reservation paid up front or only one night's deposit? Do they still allow the cancellation up to 5 days, prior to arrival? There were other questions I had for them too, but those will pop into mind later.
One good thing is - NO PESKY RESORT FEE ANYMORE!!!!!


Parking is a separate fee, so I don't even have to add that in unless there is a car involved. BUT, in the absence of the Resort Fee, DLR may have reverted to their old ways (circa 1990's) and changed the amount they hold/block for 'incidentals.' So I have to find that out.
While I would LOVE to start hoarding Disney gift cards again to put towards a hotel room, given what I experienced on this last trip....I have to admit...I am gun shy.

It seems like the simple act of paying for part of my hotel reservation in gift cards set the whole snowball in motion and caused the huge mess of them putting a hold on almost $300 of my money without telling me.
So I probably will continue hoarding gift cards...but maybe I will instead save them for food and other stuff. Honestly, I wish it wasn't so tricky to apply them towards hotel rooms because I would rather do that. It's easier for me to set aside money in gift cards than it is to set aside cash and hang on to it until reservation time. But it is unlikely that I would be able to pay for the entire reservation (4 nights, 5 nights or whatever I end up choosing) at the time of booking, so inevitably something would have to be paid at a later date.