October 24th one day spooktacular, First TR, Lots of Pics!!!!

[nicolita3]

Im from Phoenix and had done the GAD program. My family and I had done Project Linus and made blankets for children. It was me, my mom, and my dad going. So Satuday October 23 we left for Disney, it was a pretty uneventful drive there. We arrived at the Disneyland Hotel at around 2:30 pm. Check in took about 15 minutes. We tried to get into the dreams tower but they said it would be an extra $45 per floor. So we decided not to do that and save the money on souvies. We stayed in the main building on the 5th floor, room 2335. The room was nice even though it was not one of the refurbed rooms. One thing we noticed was that the beds were really high up, and we are not short by any means . Once we got all settled in the room we decided to go explore Downtown Disney.

We did some exploring and shoping, by this time it was 5:45, we were hungry! We had reservations for Naples at 7:00, we asked if they would be able to move us up to 6pm and they were so nice and had a table ready for us then. We had the Patina Group Coupon since it was my Dads birthday in September for $30 off and had no problems using it.

We ordered the Arugula salad and the Margherita (large) pizza, they brought us bread to. Everything was good, I didnt really like the bread it was cold and dry.

 

[nicolita3]

Dinner was quite good given the price, with the coupon we only spent about $20.

Here are some more shots from around Downtown Disney:

Me:

The Lego store:

Marceline's:

 

[nicolita3]

One of the window displays for Disney weddings:

That day we saw about 3 weddings and 1 quincianera, everyone looked so lovely

They had some horn players out for Octoberfest:

After that we decided to head back to our room to get some rest since we had a big day ahead of us!

 

[nicolita3]

On Sunday we got up EARLY so we could make it to the 7 am magic mornings. We got there at about 6:30 and they opened the ticket booths at about 6:50 we the upgraded our GAD passes to one day park hoppers and got our VoluntEar Button.

Sunrise:

The first thing we did was go to Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy it said 10 minute wait but there was absolutely NO wait, it was just a matter of getting through that maze.

Me, my Dad, and my Mom behind me:

 

[nicolita3]

Next we went on the Submarines and again NO wait:

Small World with NO wait:

 

[reyasmommy]

Thanks for sharing your pictures.

My DH and I stayed at the DL hotel several years ago and loved it.

And OMG that pizza looks sooooo yummy!!! Was it??

I look forward to reading more about your trip.

 

[nicolita3]

And OMG that pizza looks sooooo yummy!!! Was it??

It was yummy!

 

[nicolita3]

We then headed over to the Storybook Land Canal Boats with a wait that was under 5 minutes.

After that we headed over to Mr. Toads with the line was pretty short, less than 5 minutes.

We also did Pinocchio and Snow White, non of these had lines and we were the first ones on!

 

[nicolita3]

Then we headed to Adventureland

We decided on the Tiki Room next, along with a total of 3 other families watching the show, we couldnt believe how quiet the pak was and by this time it was almost 8:30!

After that we went on the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Carribean both had waits that were less than 5 minutes as well.

Next was the Haunted Mansion, I was excited to see this since I had never seen the overlay before. This had about a 10 minute wait.

After that we headed to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain both had waits that were under 5 minutes. We then decided to stroll around before our reservations for lunch.

 

[nicolita3]

We had reservations for Cafe Orleans at 11:30, but right before we stopped at Indiana Jones the ride had closed due to maintainance issues but we grabbed fast passes just incase.

We ordered the Pommes Frites, these were so good!

My dad ordered the Mardi Gras Chicken Sandwich, he didnt really like it much, he said it was too spicy.

I ordered the French Onion Soup. It wasnt very good, the cheese wasnt even melted at all.

My mom ordered the La Salade de Maison, she said it was alright

This is the Gift with every $35 spent

and the cute hot chocolate mug we got on one of the carts

 

[reyasmommy]

Thanks for showing all of your great pictures. Everytime I see at TR I get butterflies in my stomach, gets me so excited and motivated to do what I need for my trip.

 

[nicolita3]

After lunch we went to Indiana Jones and it was back up and running so we used our fastpasses and had a blast. Afterwards we decided to head over to DCA.

We headed over to Soarin and the wait was 45 minutes we grabbed some fastpasses and decided to go exploring. We hadnt been to DCA in about 7 years so a lot had changed. We went on Mickeys Fun Wheel, it was the longest wait the entire day, about 25 minutes long. Which isnt bad considering we usually go during the summer and have much longer waits.

View from the Fun Wheel:

After we decided to play some Boardwalk Games, I won these cuties in about 10 minutes and only spent $10.

We continued to explore the Boardwalk and went on a few more rides

We then met Duffy! I was a little surprised, no one seemed to really care about him. He was standing all alone when we met him and no one seemed to be buying any of the bears

We then headed to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, it was great, I had never been on this one except for the one at Disney World, so I wasnt expecting the drops when they happened. It was lots of fun and only about a 10 minute wait!

We then headed back to Soarin. After Soarin we went and did some more rides, but then decided to head back to Disneyland. We really wanted to ride the train around the park.

After the train ride we were hungry, so we went to the Stage Door Cafe. My parents both got the Fish and Chips one with tarter sauce and one with Buffalo Hot Sauce I got Kids meal Chicken Breast Nuggets with french fries and ranch dressing and a water bottle. My mom got hot tea in one of the cute Souvenier mugs.

We decided to go do some shopping and went on a few rides. At about 9pm we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning was check out.

Me saying goodbye to my old friend

Overall it was a great trip! October is the best time of year to go, I have decided (I have only gone during summer and spring break). The weather was perfect! Mid to upper 60's. There were practically no lines for the rides. I had never stayed on property before and it was wonderfull. The walk was so nice and quick. I already cant wait to go back!