PTR: Getting ready for our 1st October visit to DL!

[TheMaxRebo]

I hear you about the reservations (or lack there of) - I am still trying to make a breakfast at the Plaza for Wed Oct. the 14th and the Carthay Circle WOC package on Friday October 16th and am not able to. I had called and they said similar as you - they thought it would be out by now but isn't and they don't know for sure when it will be so "just keep checking" ... for someone used to booking WDW ADRs at 6am exactly 180 days out, this is kinda driving me crazy!

 

[VandVsmama]

When I went to purchase our final 2 DL tickets yesterday, I originally thought that I'd be able to get a screaming deal on a discount because through my employer, they have ticketsatwork.com, and the 3-day park hoppers for 1 adult and 1 child would have been about $50 cheaper than directly through Disney's website.

YAY, right? Well, no. When I went to check out and pay, ticketsatwork.com added over $37 in taxes and handling fees! Um....Disneyland doesn't have taxes on its admission tickets. And with the added taxes, it almost eliminated the cost savings. So FORGET IT, I thought! I'll just buy them directly from the DL website and be done with it.

It was frustrating when I was in the moment because I was excited about saving $50 on the DL tickets, only to find out that nah....not what you thought!

I tried again this morning to book the BB Fantasmic! dinner package and Plaza Inn character breakfast and still nothing available after 10/3. BOO!

On the plus side of everything, it's 5.5 weeks until we leave for our trip!

 

[kaoden39]

It never fails to amaze me how much it costs to buy tickets other places. They make it sound like such a great deal. Then they add all these fees. We bought the tickets for our last trip on ticketsatwork.com there were 7 tickets we bought and it was a bargain but, I was in line at the ticket booth FOREVER to get the tickets. At that point I decided that no deal was good enough for the time I lost in line.

Good luck on getting your meals booked!!

 

[VandVsmama]

Well, DL finally has some October park hours posted this morning! YAY! Yesterday, there were no park hours listed after 10/3. Park hours will be:

Sun 10/4:
DL - 8am-12am
DCA - 8am-10pm

Mon 10/5:
DL - 8am-6pm (this is a Halloween party night)
DCA - 8am-8pm

Tues 10/6:
DL - 8am-11pm
EMH @ DL - 7am-8am
DCA - 8am-8pm

I'm now kind of glad that I'm not springing for the extra almost $300 for us to go to the Halloween party. It's an awful lot of money for not that much time. Maybe we'll try for it in a year or two, but it's not in the cards this time around. We'll be pretty tired at the end of the day on Monday anyway...even with DCA closing at 8pm and DL closing to us at 6pm.

The silver lining to the cloud is that we can get to bed early so that we can be up really early for our 7am EMH at Disneyland on Tuesday! (since we're getting 3-day park hoppers)

My DH doesn't realize this, but this means that he's going to need to be ready to walk out the motel room door at 6:15 am on Tuesday. Poor guy! If he wants to sleep in? Hey, that's fine with me! I'm going to be there for the 7am opening of the gates! There's nothing like seeing Fantasyland or Tomorrowland totally empty, where you can skip down a deserted Main Street and walk onto every ride.

So.....
The 7am EMH makes my Plaza Inn character breakfast plans a little better than I'd anticipated! Originally, I was figuring that DL would open at 9am on Tuesday (with EMH being from 8-9am) and that I could probably get a breakfast reservation for 10:30am. By 10:30 am, we'll all probably be ready for a break so we can fuel up and recharge.

Now if DL would just open up their dining reservations, I'll be all set!

5 MORE WEEKS TO GO! I AM SO STINKING EXCITED!

 

[VandVsmama]

AT LONG LAST, I FINALLY HAVE MY DINING RESERVATIONS! I've been checking daily for over 2 weeks! YAY! FINALLY! So I got the following two reservations:

1. Blue Bayou Fantasmic! dinner package on Sunday, 10/4 at 5:50 pm
2. Minnie's character breakfast at the Plaza Inn on Tuesday, 10/6 at 10:00 am

 

[kaoden39]

That's great!!

 

[VandVsmama]

So this is interesting...

It appears that the October DL schedule has the following:

On week nights that are NOT Fantasmic! nights and are NOT Halloween party nights: (this would be Tues 10/3)
9:30 pm - fireworks
10:45pm - Paint the Night parade

On Fantasmic! nights: (this would be Sunday 10/4)
9:00 pm - Fantasmic!
9:30 pm - fireworks
10:45 pm - Fantasmic! and Paint the Night parade

 

[TheMaxRebo]

So glad you got the ADRs you wanted! ... also glad we no longer have to keep checking the site like crazy!

 

[VandVsmama]

Exactly one month from today, I'm going to be a packing fiend...getting ready to leave on 10/3 to drive to Anaheim! SO EXCITED!

We have a lot going on at home in this month...a swim meet, school, work , and other general life stuff. But THERE'S ONLY ONE MONTH LEFT!

 

[VandVsmama]

Well, I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist this morning. A tooth has really been bothering me for a 4-5 days and I'm not scheduled for a cleaning until late October...and it's on 9/4! My overactive panicking brain went into freak out mode and I was thinking, "Holy cow, I'm going to need a root canal! Will I be able to get this all fixed before our Disneyland trip?"

Why yes! It was only a cavity! And only $62.00 to fill the cavity. YAY! I AM SO GRATEFUL! No more owies. I could have just kissed my dentist I was so thrilled!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Congrats on only being one month out! And glad it wasn't anything more serious at the dentist

 

[VandVsmama]

Congrats on only being one month out! And glad it wasn't anything more serious at the dentist

It was such a relief! I am glad that I went this week instead of waiting until late October (when my next cleaning appointment is)...by that time, I might have needed a root canal!

A couple of days ago, DH said that he didn't want to go to Disneyland for our annual family trip next year. WAAAH! Noooo!! I'm going to have to go more than a year without Disneyland? DH wants to do a road trip instead in October 2016 during our kids' fall break. He wants to go to Zion National Park "and a couple of other places around there."

Hm....ok...I'm thinking.... We'll turn it into a real life Carsland Radiator Springs road trip! We can see the real Monument Valley, go to Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Navajo reservation...maybe even take a jeep tour with a Navajo guide so we can all learn some more about the history and culture of the area.

And of course we will have to stop in Holbrook, AZ, at the REAL Cozy Cone Motel...the Wigwam Motel (http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/wigwam_village_hotel6_holbrook.html)! And we can stop for a picture at the Jackrabbit Trading Post, which is just exactly like the Radiator Springs sign that says "Here it is" (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/85).

It'll take 8 hours to get from our house in Tucson to Zion National Park in southern Utah.

I figure after we hit Zion National Park for a couple of days, then we can drive to Chinle, AZ and visit Canyon de Chelly. And we can take a side trip through Ganado, AZ, which is the home of the Hubbell Trading Post...continuously operating as a trading post for 139 years.

On our way back home, we could also stop at Montezuma Castle National Monument (http://www.nps.gov/moca/index.htm).

 

[kaoden39]

The road trip sounds like a blast to me!!

 

[VandVsmama]

I was up late last night...couldn't sleep! So what's a good way to pass the time at midnight on Labor Day weekend? Do more trip planning, of course!

It's a year away and I'm already looking up cool places we can visit in northern AZ. For example, our road trip could go something like this:

Day 1:

• Tucson --> Holbrook, AZ - 4 hour drive
• Stay at the Globetrotter Lodge. People have posted good reviews of this place on Yelp, the place is apparently owned by an Austrian couple and they run it similarly to small European hotels. Comes with a good continental breakfast.

Day 2:
Holbrook --> Petrified Forest - 20 minute drive
Petrified Forest --> Hubbel Trading Post in Ganado, AZ - 1 hour drive
Hubbel Trading Post --> Chinle, AZ - 45 min drive. Maybe stay in the park at the Sacred Canyon Lodge.

Day 3:
Do a 3-hour canyon jeep tour in the morning
Then Chinle --> Kayenta
Stay overnight in Kayenta or if we can't reserve a room there, do a short visit to Monument Valley and then drive 2 hours to Page, AZ and spend the night in Page

Day 4:
Page, AZ --> Springdale, UT - about a 2 hour drive
OR stay at the lodge in Zion National Park!

That's as far as I've gotten so far.

In terms of our October trip that's coming up in a little under a month, I added Mickey's Surf's Up breakfast at the PPH on our check out day. But now I'm debating doing that and Minnie's breakfast at the Plaza Inn. I think that I will probably cancel one of those...probably Minnie's breakfast because we can just have an early lunch at 11:00 am that day instead and eat at one of our favorite places....the Hungry Bear!

 

[Chris9ty]

We are planning our first trip to Disneyland too for October! So excited! Following along!

 

[VandVsmama]

I've got the suitcases out now! 2.5 weeks left! I made our Ridemax plans for each day...will post those later in case anyone finds the Ridemax software interesting like I do. In the meantime, YDD has a field trip at school next week and either this week or next week is the end of the 1st grading period at ODD & YDD's school....which means that this week is full of quizzes and tests for them.

 

[VandVsmama]

I need to put in a request at the post office to have our mail held while we're away. Can't forget to do that! I'm getting a hair cut later today so my hair doesn't look like a horrible mop in our pictures. You should see how long my bangs are right now! Crazy!

I'm wondering a bit about the weather...for example, I wonder if it's going to be as hot as Hades when we're there. I was kind of hoping for some mild temperatures...70s would be great! 80s? Meh, I don't care as much for that. Sure, we live in Arizona and it's as hot as the surface of the sun here, but 85 and 50% humidity make a huge difference in what the temperature actually feels like!

I am SO looking forward to going on Pirates of the Caribbean again! I think that's probably my favorite ride in both parks. I'm looking to purchase another pin to add to my collection. Or maybe a scarf...I wear them a lot in the winter months here in Tucson when we're outside all weekend at ODD's swim meets. Yep...here in southern AZ, we only have outdoor pools and all of the meets are OUTSIDE! So break out your parkas, hats, and boots because when the wind picks up, it can get chilly!

I just saw a DLR Prep School post today about how to hold 4 FP's at Disneyland within 15 minutes of park opening. The link is here for anyone who's interested --> http://dlrprepschool.com/how-to-hold-4-fastpasses-within-15-minutes-upon-entering-disneyland/. I didn't realize that Buzz is disconnected! Or that the Frozen storytelling is disconnected, too! My kids are still big Frozen fans. Buzz FP being disconnected is good news for DH because he loves that ride and he'll want to go on it A LOT!

Here's the Ridemax plan that I have right now for our 1st day at the parks - Sunday, 10/4:
This day is day 2 of the unofficial Gay Days and according to the Gay Days website, 10/4 is their DCA day.

• 7:15 am - we leave our hotel. We're staying at the BW Stovall's.
• 7:30 am - in line at security/bag check.
• 8:00 am - DL park opening! Exchange our PhotoPass+ voucher for the actual Photo Pass, then head straight to Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell. We have missed this 2 times now and I promised my kids that this would be our first order of business.
• 8:15 am - Matterhorn. DH hates roller coasters, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to convince him to go on this with us.
• 8:29 am - Pinocchio
• 8:38 am - Mr Toad's Wild Ride
• 8:47 am - Snow White
• 9:04 am - DH or I gets Indiana Jones FP. Preferrably DH gets them so I can take kids to the bathroom.
• 9:16 am - we all go on Buzz Lightyear
• 9:38 am - Star Tours - this is our longest wait at 36 minutes. I also thought of sending DH to get Star Tours FP right at 8am while I exchange the PhotoPass+ voucher at the camera shop. Then at about 9am, we should be able to get an IJ FP because the Star Tours FP window would have opened up by then.
• 10:35 am - get Splash Mountain FP
• 10:44 am - go on IJ. ODD hates this ride. It really freaks her out. So what will probably happen is DH & YDD will go on it while ODD and I shop or maybe we'll go to the Tiki Room or the Jungle Cruise.
• 11:04 am - Haunted Mansion
• 11:34 am - use Splash Mountain FP
• 12:03 pm - free time starts. We eat lunch, go on a couple more rides, then go back to our motel to rest and go in the pool.
• 5:50 pm - dinner reservations at Blue Bayou (we're doing the Fantasmic! dinner package)
• 6:51 pm - more free time! This will probably mean HM or POTC.
• 7:16 pm - POTC
• about 7:45 pm - go to our designated seating area for Fantasmic! I need to be sure to take the kids to the bathroom ahead of time. And to have some snacks with me. And I can't forget the Dollar Tree glow sticks/glow necklaces, etc. That was a huge hit with my kids last time and it hardly cost me anything.
• 9:00 pm - Fantasmic! We've never seen it
• 9:30 pm - watch fireworks from Fantasmic! viewing area
• 10:00 pm - make our way to Autopia if possible, then trod back to the motel to bed.

 

[VandVsmama]

Our family has used Ridemax a lot, but we often go off schedule and alter things on the fly based on us changing our minds or the plan changing that day.

Monday, 10/4, is our main DCA day. So our Ridemax plan goes like this for Monday:

• 7:15 am - leave hotel
• 7:30 am - get through security/bag check & get in line at DCA entrance.
• 8:05 am - Toy Story Mania
• 8:16 am - send runner to get Soarin' FP
• 8:18 am - main group goes on King Triton's Carousel
• 8:27 am - runner gets Soarin FP
• 8:32 am - everybody rides Grizzly River Run. I need to bring cheap ponchos for this so we don't get soaked.
• 8:43 am - Little Mermaid
• 8:57 am - send runner to get RSR FP. But I might do this first and THEN Little Mermaid. Or have DH take the kids on Little Mermaid while I get the RSR FP.
• 9:05 am - runner gets RSR FP
• 9:14 am - ride Soarin' with our FP
• 9:37 am - get Anna & Elsa meet & greet tickets, then go on Monsters, Inc. ** Ridemax doesn't have Anna & Elsa M&G as an option. The original Ridemax plan just has us going on Monsters, Inc at 9:37am but we're going to get the A&E tickets first.
• 9:45 am - free time until 4:25 pm. So we're going to do the Frozen Singalong at DCA. Maybe hop over to DL and go on POTC, HM, and Star Tours. Then have lunch and decide when to head back to the hotel for a break.
• 4:25 pm - Aladdin show (for the 4:45 PM performance)
• 5:34 pm - free time. I want to have dinner at Flo's and watch the cars race by at RSR. Then go on Mater's after dinner.
• 7:25 pm - use RSR FP
• 7:55 pm - Mater's Junkyard Jamboree

Yep...we are probably going to skip the World of Color show! After DCA closes, we're going to head back to BW Stovall's and go to bed early. This is a GOOD thing since Tuesday is our early entry day, so we will need to be up super mega early!

 

[VandVsmama]

Here's the plan for Tuesday, 10/6:
You know what? I think that my DH is going to mistakenly stay up late on Monday night and he'll be pooped on Tuesday morning...and will complain, "Do we HAVE to go there so early?" No, we don't, but *I* am! LOL!

The official DL schedule has DL park hours on 10/6 being 8:00 am - 11:00 pm, with EMH being from 7:00 - 8:00 am. Hm...so if we work backwards, that means that we have to leave the hotel by no later than 6:30 am. Realistically, I'll probably be up at 5:45 am so I can get dressed & get kids fed at the free breakfast buffet before we take off for the parks! If DH wants to sleep in, that's fine...but you snooze, you lose, buddy!

I pulled that trick 2 years ago on a DL trip...the morning of day 3, DH & the kids were tired and were whining about "Do we HAVE to go NOW?" I told all of them, "No, you don't have to go now. But I am. You're all welcome to meet me in the parks later this morning after you've gotten some more rest and made your way over. DH, you can text me when you guys get there." My kids were like, "NOOOO! DON'T GO WITH OUT US! WAIT! WE'LL GET DRESSED RIGHT NOW!" OMG, you've never seen 2 little girls get ready so fast! It was funny.

So during EMH:

• Matterhorn
• Dumbo
• Alice
• Mad Tea Party
• Mr Toad
• Pinocchio

Then the rest of the day goes like this:

• 8:05 am - Haunted Mansion
• 8:19 am - Splash Mountain
• 8:50 am - Indiana Jones
• 9:02 am - Jungle Cruise
• 9:40 am - get Star Tours FP. Maybe send 1 of us to Fantasyland to get the Frozen storytelling tickets, since those are disconnected.
• 9:42 am - Buzz Lightyear
• 10:00 am - breakfast with Minnie and friends at the Plaza Inn
• 11:00 am - use Star Tours FP, then get another Star Tours FP (our family all really loves this ride).
• 11:20 am - free time. Go on POTC & HM again, take the kids to Tom Sawyer's Island. Plus, YDD desperately wants to see Tarzan's Treehouse.
• dinner - I'm thinking that we'll have dinner at the Hungry Bear. Go on POTC and HM.
• 7:58 pm - Autopia
• 8:26 pm - Finding Nemo Submarines
• 9:15 pm - Pirates of the Caribbean
• 9:24 pm - Storybook Land Canal Boats
• 10:10 pm - Snow White
• 10:15 pm - get a spot to watch Paint the Night parade
• 10:45 pm - see Paint the Night parade, then leave say our goodbyes to DL and head back to the hotel

 

[Chris9ty]

So this is interesting...

It appears that the October DL schedule has the following:

On week nights that are NOT Fantasmic! nights and are NOT Halloween party nights: (this would be Tues 10/3)
9:30 pm - fireworks
10:45pm - Paint the Night parade

On Fantasmic! nights: (this would be Sunday 10/4)
9:00 pm - Fantasmic!
9:30 pm - fireworks
10:45 pm - Fantasmic! and Paint the Night parade

Have you checked the Disneyland calendar lately? They added an early 8:45 parade on non party nights! Much better for my young boys to have a chance to see it.