Our FREE trip!! (well, sorta free...) Edited to add pics to some installments :)

[Keli]

Installment 1
Whoo Hoo! We’ve just got home from a fun, wonderful, and exciting trip to Disneyland.
Wow, living in KY I never expected to go to Disneyland. Disney World, yes, we’ve been on a couple of trips to the world and thoroughly enjoyed them both.

But Disneyland is across the country and that would add substantially to the travel costs. Seemed silly to spend the extra money when the bigger and better version was less than half as far away. Right? Nope, now that I have experienced Disneyland I cannot agree (arguing with myself, is that a symptom of anything?…).

This trip was out of my hands from the very beginning. Not a comfortable feeling for a trip-planning control freak like myself. I don’t feel the need to control everything in life but when it comes to our vacations, especially our Disney ones, well, I go commando. I have every minute planned out, I have a plan to cover every possible eventuality, every special moment is carefully constructed, and everything must be perfect, and more importantly, everything must be planned.

But this trip just appeared before us at practically the last minute, lol. In a minute I’ll explained how that happened but first let me introduce you to the cast of this trip report:
Me, 40-something lover of disney
Dh, 40-something lover of fun and vacation food wherever it is found
Dd, Ashli, 23yrs old, big fan of Disney
Matt, long time boyfriend to our dd, 26 yrs old, never been to Disney
Aunt D, 30’s, a CA transplant who misses home (KY)
Uncle K, 30’s a CA transplant who misses home but loves his job in CA
Ella-Bella, dn, 3 yrs old, fearless (mostly) and beautiful (totally!)

Our story begins with an urgent call from my mother…
“Honey, I think Ashli won a trip to Disneyworld but I think I blew it for her!” Mom sounded urgent and a little upset on the phone that morning.

I had no idea what she was talking about but it turns out that a local radio station held a drawing for a trip to Disneyland (mom got that part wrong, lol) and Ashli called in and entered herself. Then she had her boyfriend Matt call in and enter. And then she called back in and entered her Grandmother.

The radio station called my mom (Ashli’s Grandma) because she had won! But Ashli neglected to tell my mom anything about this contest. Nothing new here, Ashli wins contests constantly and she enters them all the time. She sporadically remembers to tell her Grandma about various contests. Usually only when she wins something and wants to let her Grandma know that when the cd, or book, or poster, coffee mug or whatever comes in the mail it’s actually for Ashli.

Lest you believe something nefarious is going on here, Ashli also enters in her own name but most contests limit you to one entry per household so Grandma is second best since she’s in a different household but she’ll give whatever prize is won to her beloved Granddaughter.

But mom thought this call was from some ner’do-well folks out to bilk a poor, unfortunate old lady out of her money. So they hadn’t finished congratulating her when she cuts to the chase. “So how much is this ‘prize’ gonna cost me?”

Mom said the woman on the phone seemed taken aback and explained it was a real prize and it wouldn’t cost her anything. Right about then mom realizes this is something that Ashli has done and so she gives the station Ashli’s cell phone number and they promise to call her.

While mom is explaining to me what happened I hear Ashli talking on her phone in her bedroom in an excited, happy voice. Clearly the radio station had called and I am sure they felt gratified by the excitement Ashli displayed at learning she’d won. It was certainly much more ‘radio worthy’. Although I heard Ashli’s excited “I’m going to Disneyland!” on the radio more than once, they never did play my mom’s “So how much is this ‘prize’ gonna cost me?”. Go figure.

So that is the start of our trip…A free trip to Disneyland for four people, it consisted of 4 plane tickets, two nights at DLH, and 4 three day hopper passes for Disneyland and California Adventure.

Of course two nights wasn’t enough time so we added a couple of days to the trip (here's where the free ends, lol) but I tell you more about that….in installment 2!

 

[spokanemom]

Wow! How cool to have won a prize like that, Disneyland no less! I anxiously await your next installment!

 

[Boston Tea Party]

How exciting! I can't wait to hear more!

 

[disneyfanatic4]

That is so exciting. I wish I was that lucky. Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

 

[mt mommy]

WOW, lucky you!! Can't wait to hear more!

 

[klj27]

I am from Ohio and planning our first trip all the way to DL too!

 

[Keli]

Ok, I totally lied at the end of installment 1. I thought I’d get to adding to the length of our trip in this installment but after reading it I realized I don’t get there until installment 3. Opps!

I was just a little afraid that dd would pick someone besides her Disney lovin’ Mama to go with her on this trip. I was holding my breath until I heard her tell the radio station “Oh I already know who I’m taking, My mom LOVES Disney so I have to take her”. Whew!

Ashli wanted to take this trip ASAP. She was dying to see Mickey again and Disneyland for the first time. The sponsor’s paperwork said the trip needed to be planned 45 days out.
That was perfect because 45 days would put us there in a slow period before spring breaks started for everyone.
But there was one flaw to the plan and that was how were we all going to get time off work (and school for Matt and Ashli) with that short a notice? Our HR departments must be filled with secret Disney fans because I couldn’t believe it but it worked out for all of us.

Since I work for a financial company that owns a lot of tax preparer franchises it was shocking that I managed to get a week off of work during peak in tax season.
Dh usually gets whatever vacation time he wants as long as he asks for it a YEAR in advance (he has seniority so when the calendar comes around for vacation he’s one of the first to get it).
To be able to take time off with a little over a month’s notice didn’t seem very likely. And yet, his employer said yes! Not so many folks want to take the first week of February off apparently and they could spare him. Matt and Ashli were both able to work things out and we had a green light!

In my blue haze of happiness I didn’t even consider the fact that I would be covered up and I do mean covered up with work in the weeks before the vacation. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem because I would have had all the details worked out months prior to the vacation anyway.
I usually spend the last few weeks wearing out my planner while I obsessively read it and sit and dream about all we are going to do. And make decisions like which color bucket will I pick on the dumbo ride. If I’m up to par I’ll also know what day and what time of day (give or take 5 minutes or so) I will be in the said bucket, lol.

Ok, I’m probably not as bad as that but my family tells it like I am so much that I’m starting to believe their lies and propaganda. They say all that stuff to our friends just to gain sympathy because they both think that laying beside the pool on a sunny afternoon WHILE you have tickets to the parks burning in your pocket is perfectly acceptable. Even if the park is closing early because it’s a weekday.
Even if you only spent three hours there that morning because everyone slept past Mickey’s phone call encouraging us to get up and at ‘em. You guys see what I’m up against?

But this trip shaped up much differently. Two factors going on here and they are interrelated. First we didn’t have much time to plan anything. Second, in the last year I’ve started feeling bad. Really, really bad.
All my hair started falling out , couldn’t seem to function at nearly the level I was used to moving. Not that I ever was particularly energetic, except during vacations, lol, but now it was unbelievably bad. Turns out it was a thyroid problem. Apparently my thyroid decided not to work properly and gave me no notification.

I’ve been on meds for several weeks now but they are still increasing the dose each time my thyroid function is checked. I don’t feel like myself yet but my hair has started coming back and staying a while and overall I am doing much better.
Which is good. Ashli really doesn’t need TWO bald parents. Might be hard to explain to her friends.

So I didn’t research this trip like normal. None of us had ever been to Disneyland and yet I had not memorized the park layouts, created fool-proof touring schedules, or even made PS’s except one for Goofy’s Kitchen.

I did do some research but honestly, it was pitiful. And yet, we managed to have a fantastic time. And because it was a slow time frame, had some rainy weather and whatnot, we really didn’t suffer from the lack of planning at all.

Hang in there...I've got a lot more to tell!

 

[TiggerandTink]

hanging on for more

 

[jlmarr]

Of course two nights wasn’t enough time so we added a couple of days to the trip (here's where the free ends, lol) ...

Sorry to break it to you, but you'll need to pay taxes on your contest prize winnings. Been there, done that. But even after taxes it's still a "deep discount".

 

[Keli]

Sorry to break it to you, but you'll need to pay taxes on your contest prize winnings. Been there, done that. But even after taxes it's still a "deep discount".

Oh yes, I haven't forgotten the taxes. We will definitely owe a little more to uncle sam at the end of the year.

 

[Keli]

Installment 3

Ashli and I both felt that flying all the way to CA to see Mickey merited more than two nights. So we talked with our Disney travel agent (Cheryl, a wonderful person, she was incredibly helpful, as was Gaylen, the agent who helped us out when Cheryl wasn’t at her desk).
We were staying at the Disneyland Hotel but unfortunately they couldn’t offer us the additional time we wanted because they were full (Google had a company thing going that weekend and filled it up!) so we decided to stay offsite two more nights.
I chose the Desert Inn because of things I had read about it on this board. I liked the walking distance best because we wouldn’t have any transportation while we were down there.

We left for the trip early, early on a Saturday morning. At 3:00am our alarm went off. Dh had went to bed at about 10:00pm, I hit the hay at about midnight but I know for certain that our dd wasn’t in bed before 2:00am.

That kid kills me! She must have the unspoken rule of trying to not sleep at any point during the night on a vacation (although she’s fine with mornings! Lol) and that includes the night before we leave.
I watched her select the clothes for the trip on Tuesday, I watched her wash and dry anything dirty on Thursday. All she needed to do was throw them in a suitcase with a few toiletries and she’d be good.
And yet, it’s Friday night and past 10:00pm when she first decided to put something in a suitcase. And then we discover a problem.
I have only one set of luggage. I’ve had it for years. Ashli is fully aware of this fact. But when she comes in on Friday to pack the first thing she says to me is “Where is your pullman?”. It just so happens that my Pullman is currently full of clothes for our trip. My clothes. Dh’s clothes. No room for Ashli’s clothes.
As a matter of fact, my large suitcase is also full of my clothes, dh’s clothes, and no room for Ashli’s clothes. When I inform Ashli of this she says “But I always take your suitcase when I go on trips”.
I had to love this logic. Yes, she does always use my luggage when she goes on trips. That’s because we haven’t been on a vacation together in a couple of YEARS. We aren’t using them at the same time. But this time we are together, therefore I need my luggage.
Ashli called Matt and he had an extra bag that she could use. It was a large bag, big enough for everything she wanted to take minus the carryon she was bringing. BUT it didn’t have wheels.
Someone was going to have to heft that thing through the airports more than once. Her heavy carryon didn’t have wheels either. Someone was going to have to heft that through the airports and also cram it in the overheads. I vowed to make certain that someone wasn’t me, lol.

So the alarm goes off at 3:00am. You’d think we’d be slow moving since we were all so tired but we were just too excited about Disneyland. We were up, suitcases crammed in the trunk, and on the road by 3:27am (I looked at the time, the first of many obsessive time checks until we got there).
We stopped by Matt’s place and picked him up. Since my car is a little Nissan and the trunk was already full he had to hold his luggage on his lap and put his backpack between him and Ashli on the seat. They looked pretty cramped back there but Ashli was so excited I doubt she minded. And Matt was so nervous that I doubt he noticed.

About Matt, well there’s a whole side story there. Matthew is my dd’s long time boyfriend. They’ve been dating nearly four years. With two small breaks when they ‘broke up’ but still acted like they were dating until they made it official and were back dating again, lol. Ah, the trauma of romance!

Anyway, Matt had come and spoke to dh and I in November and told us he intended to ask Ashli to marry him. Since we like him very much and feel like he will be a good husband to our dd we were pleased.
He said he intended to ask her a couple weeks before Christmas. But then the trip came up and he decided that would be the perfect place to propose (He was very right IMHO).

Matt knows how Ashli has always loved Disney. He’s heard about our trips there and about how Ashli thought she looked just like sleeping beauty in her pink satin dress when she was 5-6yrs old. She even made us call her Aurora before she would answer for a little while, lol.

Anyway he started communicating with our Disney travel agent, Cheryl, about making this special. Because this was such a last minute trip it was very hard to bring it all together. Disney has a lot of rules on what is, and what isn’t allowed, even when marriage proposals are involved. Honestly, we understood those rules.
One of the things Matt wanted to do was dress as Prince Phillip and propose to Ashli in front of the castle. That got a big no. And I could see why. Ashli would have been pretty upset herself at 5 or 6 yrs old if she had seen Prince Phillip proposing to anyone besides sleeping beauty.
There was a lot of calling back and forth, lots of suggestions from both sides, consultations with the Disney ‘dream team’ (truly a dream team, very nice folks!).

Because of this Matt didn’t have a final ok on anything yet the morning that we were leaving. So he was very nervous. And, truthfully, I think he would have been very nervous anyway. Matt doesn’t make decisions fast, he thinks about them long and hard (dd is his counterpart, she decides fast and lives much more ‘in the moment’). Maybe he was only worried about the logistics of pulling off the perfect proposal, I couldn’t tell for sure...

More in installment 4!

 

[JohnsPrincess]

Oh my gosh! You can't stop there!! MoreMoreMore!!!!!

 

[kellymom]

I am waiting as well!!! Can't wait to hear the rest.

 

[tinkermell]

Are you kidding??











You left us hanging!











More please!!!

 

[actionvaughn]

Me too! I'm loving the start already!

 

[Keli]

Installment 4

After picking Matt up we head over to my dh’s parent’s home. MIL and FIL were not only going to drive us to the airport and then also come pick us up after our trip but they were also going to dog-sit our two golden retrievers.
We owe them super big-time when their vacation rolls around this summer, lol!

By the time we left for the airport my excitement was waning enough that I was beginning to have trouble staying awake. I nodded off several times in-between chats with my MIL. I pretty sure she realized this since I woke myself up snoring three times. She graciously acted as if nothing had happened although I could hear smothered laughter coming from the backseat where Ashli and Matt were sitting.

At the airport we only needed to check our luggage since I had already printed our boarding passes at home.
We’re standing there together, we’ve already tagged some of the bags when Matt steps to my side and whispers “I’ve got Ashli’s ring in my bag, do you think it will be ok?” He was referring to the suitcase he was getting ready to check!
I whispered back that someone would steal it and he needed to keep it in his backpack. So Matt unlocks his suitcase and fishes around for the velvet box.
During the first part of this exchange Ashli is busy with luggage and didn’t notice anything but after a minute she turns to Matt and says “What are you doing honey?”
I have to laugh at Ashli’s version of events at this point. Apparently this is when Ashli first gets a clue that something is up with this trip. According to Ashli, I jumped in between her and Matt from a few feet away, threw my arms out wide to hide Matt and his suitcase, and said a fierce “Matthew has to get something out of his suitcase, go help your dad!”.
I’d like to think I was a lot more suave with the whole thing but I have to admit there is an element of truth to her version. I was caught off guard and I couldn’t think of any thing to say except “Go help your dad”. (Dh was standing right next to her and had no obvious need of help but it was the best I could come up with! ) However, I would like it known here and now that I did NOT jump in and throw my arms wide, that is pure embellishment on Ashli’s part. More or less.

After adverting that near disaster we head over to security and I had another little scare. In my efforts to distract Ashli while Matt was getting the ring I didn’t notice where he put it. I kept worrying that he had slipped it into his pocket instead of his backpack because he really did move fast.

I got even more worried when Ashli goes through security with no problem, dh goes through with no problem, I have no problems, but Matt is causing the metal detector to go off to beat the band.

I tell dh to distract Ashli because I can see they are going to have Matt empty his pockets. Of course Matt didn’t slip the ring in his pocket and I was worried for nothing but dh did manage to make Ashli think he was having an issue with his laptop going through the scanner.

A minute later she tells me “Mom, I’ve never seen Dad freak out over nothing like that before, he must be nervous about the flight”. It’s just too funny because my dh doesn’t get nervous about stuff like that and he couldn’t have been more relaxed. He’s just a better actor than I am by a long stretch, lol.

Ashli and Matt waiting around for our time to board

Ashli and dh
Thankfully at this point we are sitting around the boarding area for our flight and the most I have to worry about is finding something to eat since I’d taken my thyroid medication.

Here’s where I have my encounter with a caffeine-crazed-business-traveler-man. I found a place that sold breakfast stuff and I got in line. The guy in front of me was just way too wired or something.

He looked like your average business traveler but he went all crazy when the counter-server person starting making his food. He said he wanted a breakfast burrito with egg, cheese and a little sausage. She flips open a tortilla, puts in some egg, cheese, and starts to put in the sausage when he yells “NO, I said I wanted a little sausage!” She’d only put a small amount on there and she looked pretty startled. Then the guy throws up his hands, twirls around and stomps off in an angry cloud.
I looked at the clerk and shrugged “He said he wanted a little sausage”.

We were allowed to board our flight on time. Which was good. Except my dh was no where to be found because he’s still exploring the airport. But then before I can get worried he is there and we are soon in our seats near the tail of the plane (that’s what you get when you book a busy flight so close to the trip, lol!).

We had a layover at DFW. That’s nice airport, IMHO. Stuff to look at and do and yet not hard to navigate.

Then we arrived at John Wayne airport on time. And since we gained two hours by moving westward it’s only 1:30pm. Whoo Hoo! We are almost there. Our excitement is building. We get our luggage. About this time I realize that Matthew is trying to sneak in a call to Cheryl, our Disney travel agent to see what has been worked out.
We search out a bathroom and Matt calls while Ashli is in there. No progress yet but she says she will call him back that evening from home.

More to come….

 

[ChicagoMommy2Two]

I'm hooked!!!

 

[MotoXPrincess99]

I can't wait to read more.

 

[LauraAnn630]

Waiting for next installment!

 

[MomBoyd]