One Happy Dog Family Lands it for Halloween -- 12/29 final post and MVMCP link!!!

[2xcited2sleep]

Great tease/sneak peek. The room looks awesome. I spent less than a day in Disneyland a few years ago thanks to a work thing that ended earlier than expected but I am dying to go back!

 

[eandesmom]

GREAT sneak peek! Of the fun wheel. Or fun wheel of death as I've heard it called.

Love the room pics and cannot wait to hear more. The boys are adorable, as always....very curious as to how one costume survived and the other has been turned into spare parts.

That is a LONG day getting there, amazed you took pictures, that's impressive all by itself.

 

[Happydog]

Lovin' the sneak peek, Happydog! Hope you were able to nip your cold in the bud before you headed off to sunny California (which sounds like it has been living up to its nickname)! The reveal sounds so fun -- the aftermath says it all! The boys make great Fetts! What a gorgeous room at the Grand Californian although I bet you were absolutely beat by the time you arrived!

Oh we were tired to be sure, but I was so excited to be there!!! I recovered mostly from the cold over the week. Being on vacation was a help. Disney chocolate and candy is just so good!!!!

Great Sneak Peek!! So glad to hear you are having a great time!!! I love it!!! Can't wait to hear more!! Bring back some of the warm weather with you...got to 35 last night in Austin, TX!

Oh I would have loved to bring that weather with me! It was in the low 60s here today, but colder yesterday. I am getting things ready for this weekend!

Great tease/sneak peek. The room looks awesome. I spent less than a day in Disneyland a few years ago thanks to a work thing that ended earlier than expected but I am dying to go back!

Oh it is beautiful!!! You would like it I am sure! I enjoyed the parks -- short trip but fun never the less!

GREAT sneak peek! Of the fun wheel. Or fun wheel of death as I've heard it called.

Love the room pics and cannot wait to hear more. The boys are adorable, as always....very curious as to how one costume survived and the other has been turned into spare parts.

That is a LONG day getting there, amazed you took pictures, that's impressive all by itself.

Oh well BOTH costumes are toast more or less. I will share all when I get to that day, but to be sure, I won't be buying costumes next year! That fun wheel ... no, hate to say it, I just took pictures of it. no one wanted to ride it. BUT it is gorgeous in person, and during World of Color!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Great start!! I'm excited to hear about the rest of your trip!

 

[Native NYer]

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Happydog]

Great start!! I'm excited to hear about the rest of your trip!

Can't wait to read more!

I am hoping to get it started this week! So stay tuned! Have a great time visiting the World, Jen!!!

SO excited that you get to go for the conference! That is awesome luck.

I am looking forward to going myself in a few weeks, too!

 

[manntra]

Ooohhh I love the decor of the room....the furniture, spread and tiles in the kitchen...
Hmmmmm I can see after you start this TR you will get me hankering for a West Coast trip!!

Tracy

 

[DisneyMom14]

Yay!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Just saying hi!

 

[Happydog]

Greetings everyone! I hope you are still interested in reading about Halloween at Disneyland with the Happy Dog Clan!

I got rather side tracked when we got home, November has been a blur! And though it has only been a few weeks, we are already a few days away from Thanksgiving, and, if you can believe it, our little trip to Disneyworld! faint:

I can't believe that in FIVE DAYS We will be flying off to Florida for a week!!!! Only a few days of "vacation" officially, and three of those days will be in St. Pete's for training, but I will take it! Can't get any better than that!

I have been up to my ears with house cleaning and preparations the past several days, as I am sure many are. Getting ready for the Holiday! I have eight people for dinner Thursday, something I was NOT expecting, actually, but that is fine. I am looking forward to having family over, but I am more excited about BLACK FRIDAY!!!! That is my holiday. WOOT! I have been lurking on websites and plotting and speculating for the best deals! Of course I will be packing and getting ready to be gone for a week hours after I pack up the leftovers from Thanksgiving, so it should be an interesting 48 hours!

So, since I have other Disney Holiday fun to share in just a week, I thought I would at least get this Halloween fun underway.

Now for a little sad news. My camera chip managed to get corrupted somehow, and so several of the images I took are missing or distorted. SO, alas, while I have MOST of my pics, some are missing. I was really bummed about it to say the least, but, of course I have the memories and plenty of pics to keep me happy. I will have a few gaps though, in the photos I have, so there will be spots where my pictures to share will be pretty limited! But I think I can still get a great TR together for you all!

I have decided to just keep the Disneyland trip together, all in one, if you will, and have planned to write a Holiday 2010 TR for my short Christmas trip next week. I have lots of fun to say about that trip, too! But first things first!!!!

So lets head back to sunny California, where we awoke at the Grand Californian to a beautiful day!! Thanks to the time zone, we were all up early. I got the boys dressed, and DH went to the park entrance to get our passes. He had to turn in our GAD certificates, and upgraded the tickets to two days. We thought to do park hoppers, but decided that given the time zone we probably wouldn't be up for it that evening. This was a good strategy it turned out. So I had brought donut holes and bananas with me on the plane, figuring we would need breakfast on these two mornings, and that worked out perfectly! The boys ate and I took a shower.

When DH came back, he had two latte's from the cafe down in the lobby and we all finished getting ready, and headed down to the park entrance that has access directly through the resort. We were headed for OUR California Adventure, and our FIRST time in Disneyland parks as a family!

We immediately headed over to Paradise Pier to check out the rides in that area. DH wanted to try out California Screamin'... the name says it all. No one else rode, if that tells you anything. And DH only rode it once, and that does say something! Here are the photos around Paradise Pier. Paradise Pier reminds me a little of a location in DHS, like it could be there. It is a neat area, and I suspect will continue to be redeveloped after they add the two new attractions that are going in there – both are related to The Little Mermaid, I believe. Because of that, there really isn't too much going on in this area for attractions. They have several "arcade" carnival style booth games, but you pay for those separately. Like they have at Animal Kingdom.

So here is the first attraction for everyone! Now Sadly, these sort of rides tend to make me feel woozy. I don’t do well on carnival rides! so with all the theme-ing, while it was cute, it was somewhat disappointing that the other rides were closed! BUT TSM really fits in nicely! And it was neat! Pretty much the same, but the queue line is outside.

Can I tell you how amazing the weather was??!! Gorgeous and sunny.

The boys then rode this:

No one wanted to ride the big “wheel of death” but I enjoyed watching it go around, and enjoyed the view around this part of the park. I was totally unaware at this point about how much more there was to see of the park. It seems small but deceptively so when you start getting into the other "lands" and themed areas.

CONTINUED in the NEXT POST!!!

 

[Happydog]

We walked back towards the Grand Californian entrance past what is called Grizzly Peak. We then went to check out the Grizzly River Run, a rapid ride which is like Kali River, but longer.

Not sure why this woman looks so grumpy but she got in the middle of my picture!!! LOL!

This one I borrowed to give you a bit more of an image of the water...

It was still feeling rather cold to be getting onto that so early, and we thought to get FPs for it, but they were still running FPs for World of Color preferred seating out of the machines at that point, so we kept going. Grizzly river run was amazing, LATER, before dinner we rode it, so for now we kept going past Grizzly peak to this family favorite….

It was fun to ride Soarin' in Disney land. We had FPs so that helped, but just like in WDW, the FP line is not so "fast"!!!

This area is neat, has all the air field and old time airplane memorabilia, it is also where Mater and Lightening hang out! I think Cynthia (EandEsmom) had lots of pics in this area from her California Adventure day.

Now, around this time I think we decided to take a break for some popcorn and espresso…. At least the adults needed espresso! The cute Halloween popcorn buckets… TOO cute. But not $10.00 cute! We settled for the $5.00 World of Color bucket instead! Which DH promptly left somewhere that day. LOL! “oh, I didn’t know you wanted to keep that….” It is DISNEY!!! How could I not want to keep it, and isn’t the fact that I have TWO Give a Day Muppet popcorn buckets at home reason to believe I would want to keep it!!?? LOL!! Seriously!!!!

With our popcorn and coffee, WHAT a combination, right??!! LOL! We then headed over to Hollywood Pictured Back lot – and the Monster’s Inc. attraction, called Mike and Sulley to the Rescue. WHAT a hoot!!! SO cool!!!!
… I took TONS of photos of this ride. Sadly, those I took at the beginning didn’t make it, but here is a sample. I was really impressed with all the creativity and the themed details!!! It was a dark ride, obviously, so hard to shoot inside. The queue was really neat, with monster-style vending machines, and advertisements, etc. Really a hoot!

Perhaps the best part, though, was Roz. Now this Roz was great, of course I didn’t think anything of it, when she turned and said "see you next time," but then when it said "are you two twins?" (to my two boys) I realized that it was actually a “real time” CM portraying Roz!!! It was hilarious! She even told me to go ahead and take her picture, and made a joke that I left the camera lens on!!! (which I didn’t but then she said – “Made you look!”) TOO funny!!!

That was a great attraction, just so nicely done, and it was a sign of things to come in terms of Pixar attractions.

Did I mention there were NO lines NO crowds anywhere at California Adventure??!! I think because most people made today their Disneyland day… (since the Halloween party made it an early closing on Halloween night -- the next day). It definitely worked to our advantage! We rode this ride twice, and then decided popcorn wasn’t enough, and what we really wanted were hotdogs! BUT not any old hot dog… MAN these were good. DH and I split one, a BBQ grilled red onions, and cheese, very good! And the boys each had their own and sat for some lunch. This was located in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot still, which reminds me of Sunset strip in Disneyworld.

DH decided we had to have these…

Can you believe it? NOT the popcorn bucket, but WHY these??!! I was saying to him, WHY do we need these? And he said he liked them... "Look, Buzz's wings come out" ... Sigh. I couldn’t believe I was going to be looking for room in my suit case for these… LOL!

Continued in the NEXT POST!!!!!

 

[Happydog]

SO now that we had a little something in our tummies it was time to try out the big interactive play area. A'la "Honey I Shrunk the Kids play area" and the "Dino Dig Site". It is called the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail; an interactive playground area. It has shows with brother bear characters as well. We had fun burning off some steam, though, and it was a great place for the boys! I didn’t get too many pics but it was pretty and fun for them.

So now it was time for an ice cream… We were the biggest snacking family this day. Partially, I think, because our body clocks were telling us we were hungry at weird times. But who can say no to ice cream???
In the center part of California Adventure, Sunshine Plaza, where they have the main entrance, there is a replica of the California Zephyr train. WHAT a cool cool set up! Ice cream shop inside!!!! My photos were lost, but here is one I took inside as we waited for our scoops!

And this one I borrowed so you could see…

Our next walk was over to and then we headed over to Bugs Land…. WOW. Can I just say WOW. This was an amazing area, and in my opinion the best part of California Adventure. We had a great time here…. I tried to get as many pictures as I could, and so most are intact, but take a look at the details!!!! Here is the sign into Bug's Land.

Here are my boys trying their hand at being "stick bugs"

Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train was one of our favorites… TOOOOOOO funny. When you get off the ride, he says “I am missing you already!” -- and during the ride he says all sorts of really adorable sayings, so of course my DH decided to share his Heimlich impressions the rest of the day…. It kept us laughing. I am sure you can imagine some of his "sayings" along the way!

The idea behind the whole theme is the circus fun fair acts, that the bugs have, and so the carnival rides are all there with silly names… here is another one… Tuck & Roll's Drive 'em Buggies

CONTINUED in the NEXT POST!!!

 

[Happydog]

Ooohhh I love the decor of the room....the furniture, spread and tiles in the kitchen...
Hmmmmm I can see after you start this TR you will get me hankering for a West Coast trip!!

Tracy

I am hankering to go back after looking at my pictures!!! SO much fun. I got a great tile for my house!

Yay!

YAY finally. I just posted three updates!

Just saying hi!

HI back! Three updates!

 

[reelmom]

Wow! Great updates and a trip to Disney World on the horizon. Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and a lovely time at WDW.

 

[manntra]

California Adventure looks like a blast!!! Thanks for sharing!!!
Hmmmm I wonder what I did with my popcorn bucket?!!!! I bought the same one!!
It so fun looking at your pictures because everything is so brand new to me!!
If I don't catch you....have a wonderful Thanksgiving and an awesome next trip!!!! I can't believe you are leaving again so soon!!!

Tracy

 

[nowellsl]

I love the popcorn buckets and the souvenier cups! I would have bought one of each I'm enjoying the pictures, one of these days I would love to visit Disneyland!

 

[jenjolt]

Great Great update!!! What a fun day at DL!!!!!! CA Adventure looks amazing!!!!!

Your boys being bugs is a great picture!!!!

I want to ride the Monsters Inc ride!!!!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Well worth the wait! Great updates. Everything looks like such fun. Love that Mickey Halloween popcorn bucket but $10 does seem a bit steep.

Can't believe you are going back so soon. Color me jealous!

Happy Thanksgiving to the Happydog family!

 

[lovegrumpy]

Making me miss Disneyland. Can't wait Intel 2013. Finally get to go back.

 

[Happydog]

So another few attractions in Bug's Land were Francis' Ladybug Boogie and Flik's Flyers. Here are a few photos from those attractions.

The final ride we did in Bug’s Land was Flik’s Flyers….

Again, totally amazing details… the containers that you rode in were yogurt containers, whipped topping containers, and Chinese food containers, etc. they even had the nutritional information on the side!!
Seeing all of these amazing details just got me really excited for “Cars land” – what a cool idea, and I am sure it is going to be amazing!

So after all the fun in Bugs land, we checked out Tortilla Flats and Fisherman’s wharf, where all the QS eateries are. We grabbed margaritas, and walked around. We decided to try our hand at the river rapids at this point. WOW. That is all I can say. We definitely got a little wet, but not too much. We were lucky! But DH decided he wanted to switch to jeans, and DS8 was wet enough as well, so we walked back into the resort, and while they changed (DS8 just into new jeans), I walked around a little to check things out with DS5.

Here are some shots from that time…

CONTINUED SOON! STAY TUNED!