PTR: of 5 adults and 4 kids going to Disneyland in December 2015!!!

[JenEMT]

Hi, I'm Jen. This is my first ever trip report of any kind so bear with me lol. I grew up in SoCal and went to Disneyland at least once per year. Must be why I am such a Disney lover now. I'm obsessed with the planning for our December trip. We haven't been since our last 5 day trip in March of 2008.
I wanted to start this PTR to lay out our plans, organize some thoughts and lastly (most importantly) receive feedback and advice from the amazing DIS community! Please feel free to fire away!! Oh, I also hope my info here may help some other planner in some way shape or form!

Which brings me to my crew:
Me
Soon to be hubby
DD15
DS14
DD11
DD8

Also joining us is my sis and BIL, as well as my BFF

When:
We will be driving down from Oregon December 5th. Visiting with family in the area on the 6th, then will visit the parks from the 7-11th (Monday-Friday). On the 12th we will visit more family in the area and then make the drive back home. I'm even excited for the road trip to Disney... How bad is that? I think my sis is taking a train, and my BFF is flying.

Where:
Best part is that we get to stay on site at the Paradise pier for our stay! We went they Costco and will be in two standard rooms (for now, I'm planning on changing that lol) It took me months of a round and round cycle to finally throw in the towel and change my reservations to on site. I couldn't stop obsessing over it. I'd been initially going for budget, but decided to go for experience instead. I searched and searched for off site hotels that I thought I could settle for, but I always kept dreaming of being able to stay on site. More on that later I suppose in another post.

Oh, the reason for this trip, you ask? Well it is the year of diamonds in more ways then just Disney! I'm getting my own diamond also! We are getting married and decided that a "family honeymoon" was in order! I also don't remember ever going during the holidays as a child, and really wanted my family and I to experience some holiday magic at Disneyland. The kids agreed to forgo any big Christmas presents in exchange for a trip to Disney. DS14 is by far my biggest Disneyland lover and helps me with a lot of the planning. He also does his own research. I think we talk about it or look at pics almost every day.

So stay tuned for further planning details!


Updated plans/schedule:
see page two (in not sure how to make a link )

 

[JenEMT]

I'm not even sure where to begin with laying out the plans. At the moment I have a note pad with MANY quick notes in no random order. A list of foods we want...ideas, shows, tips I've read. I hope to organize all those here in my PTR.

So we started planning this trip in December of last year... I originally booked a double room at Desert Inn & Suite. That was before BFF decided to join, and as I had only reserved the suite with 4 queens, I knew that wasn't going to be big enough. I really didn't want to compete for space for 5 nights lol. So I began my hotel search all over again during the end of July. We considered the Desert Palms, the Residence Inn main gate in a penthouse, Park Vue & Park Place Inn. After realizing even the penthouse only slept 8, and PPI/PVI were both unavailable for our dates, it was down to Desert Palms and Paradise Pier. All along we've been dreaming of staying on site. Using EE, sending purchases to room... Just being more immersed in Disney were things we all wanted. So I bit the bullet and made the reservations last week, for two standard rooms at PPH. I can only imagine that if we had stayed off site we would have been disappointed, or at least just felt a missing aspect during our vacation. I'm hoping that Disney comes out with a special for premium rooms for our dates, and I can update our reservation.
I haven't cancelled our reservation at Desert Inn yet. I'm going to wait until closer to the cancellation window, just in case.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

joining in - congratulations on getting married and a family honeymoon sounds like such a fun idea!

We have our first trip coming up and very much debated like you staying onsite or off. Ultimately we decided to stay off site at the HoJo in a family suite as it was cheaper than just a regular room onsite and I think the kids will love the water park, and seemed like being right across the street will make it seem like still "inside the bubble" - but definitely get the draw of staying on site. We are trying to do it a bit on the cheap - if we had more money to play with I definitely think we would have gone for the Disneyland Hotel

 

[JenEMT]

joining in - congratulations on getting married and a family honeymoon sounds like such a fun idea!

We have our first trip coming up and very much debated like you staying onsite or off. Ultimately we decided to stay off site at the HoJo in a family suite as it was cheaper than just a regular room onsite and I think the kids will love the water park, and seemed like being right across the street will make it seem like still "inside the bubble" - but definitely get the draw of staying on site. We are trying to do it a bit on the cheap - if we had more money to play with I definitely think we would have gone for the Disneyland Hotel

Thanks, I've been reading through your PTR also! I love your layout and organization. I may have to steal some ideas from you! We considered Hojo also, but since our party is so big we were more limited.... There is also possibility of my brother joining also, so I needed to account for that.
I look forward to reading tour PTR also!

 

[JenEMT]

First things first, I should start with the drive down. Our initial thoughts were to drive down Saturday morning and arrive late late late Saturday night. However I got to thinking well hubby works nights normally...most likely will be working Friday night. So our options are:
A)we leave in the morning, I drive and he sleeps.
B) He comes home and sleeps. I would have more time to finish up packing and loading truck, etc. When he wakes we can eat dinner and leave from there, with him driving and me sleeping.

I'm leaning towards option B for several reasons. We both work 12-14+ hour shifts, and will be doing several trades to get all the days off for Disney. This means, I will most likely be working five or more 12-14 hour shifts in a row before we leave..,tack on my 45 minute commute each way and that makes for some really long days. Not much time for packing.

The only thing that makes me lean towards A is how excited we are to leave as soon as possible lol.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I would think that option B would be best in the long run ... this way you don't have to rush packing and you both should (theoretically) have more rest for the time there rather than be tired while there ... though understand that waiting is hard

 

[jaylensmom]

I'm joining in... I promised by DS10 a trip to Disneyland during the holidays and I need to get busy planning. You're inspiring me to actually do a PTR...maybe it will hold me accountable. Congrats on getting married

 

[JenEMT]

I'm joining in... I promised by DS10 a trip to Disneyland during the holidays and I need to get busy planning. You're inspiring me to actually do a PTR...maybe it will hold me accountable. Congrats on getting married

Hi. Thanks! I really need to get back up and writing more on the PTR. Just so busy! Wedding in 4 days

I probably won't get to writing more until early September, after the back to school rush, but I have TONS of things to organize lol. I can't wait until October when I can make some dining reservations

 

[kaoden39]

How exciting!! Wedding in four days, I'm sure you're running around like crazy! I think it's great to plan a family honeymoon trip! I look forward to hearing about your plans. Have wonderful wedding!!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Just wanted to wish all the best for the wedding!

 

[JenEMT]

I'm back at it (finally)!!!

The wedding went amazing! Couldn't have asked for a better day. I'm pretty sure it will come a close second to our Disney trip


Here is a small preview of our own diamond celebration


Ahh... I'm surprised to say I would love to relive that day many times over. Here I thought I wasn't a fan of weddings. Of course it wasn't a typical wedding. Just our style!

Anyway, onward with the DISNEY planning!

 

[JenEMT]

Oh wow, does my ticker really say 2 months, 3 weeks and 5 days?!?!? I'm beyond excited!!

#1) So a couple of changes. Disney published 10% off PPH standard rooms, so calling to update my ressie at the moment

- I have a question for y'all. I've read around the boards about folks calling in and having notes put on their hotel reservations. I'd like to request that we receive rooms with a sofa, and would like to have a note put up that its our family honeymoon. Our package is thru Costco, but I believe I have to call PPH direct to have these notes applies to our res. Is this correct?

#2) apparently my BFF would like to fly instead of take the 16 hour drive with us. I don't blame her. However, she is talking about flying in on Sunday (our day to visit with my aunt/cousins). Which means I would need to take time away from seeing my family (which I haven't seen in 2 years), to drive to the airport and pick her up. The more I think about that, the more it bothers me. I'm trying to decide on how to ask her to fly in on Monday and take the shuttle to the hotel, and meet us in the parks. If she flys in early enough, she would still have a full day in Disneyland with us. Plus my family's place isn't really all that close to any airport. (Approx 2hrs one way).

So onto my next step in planning; -and I need HELP

Sunday night we will be staying at my aunts house. She lives approx 2 hours from Disneyland. I'd like to make it in time for EMH. BUUUUUUT I have so many questions as to approaching this. First, we would need to wake up EARRRRRLY. (Haha kids). To make the drive. Then, would it be acceptable to try and check in At PPH At this time? Where would we park, at the hotel, or? What would any of you do? I'm really stumped on how to organize this one.

 

[kaoden39]

You can register, your room more than likely won't be done but you can definitely register and leave your luggage with the bell desk.

 

[millie0312]

You can register, your room more than likely won't be done but you can definitely register and leave your luggage with the bell desk.

We checked in to the GCH last year at about 6 am so we could get our EE that day (we like to get there about 30 mins before EE so we aren't too far back in line). We didn't need to leave our luggage (left it in the car), but it was no issue checking in early and we got a text later with our room number when it was ready. Congrats on the beautiful wedding!

 

[millie0312]

Oh wow, does my ticker really say 2 months, 3 weeks and 5 days?!?!? I'm beyond excited!!

#1) So a couple of changes. Disney published 10% off PPH standard rooms, so calling to update my ressie at the moment

- I have a question for y'all. I've read around the boards about folks calling in and having notes put on their hotel reservations. I'd like to request that we receive rooms with a sofa, and would like to have a note put up that its our family honeymoon. Our package is thru Costco, but I believe I have to call PPH direct to have these notes applies to our res. Is this correct?

#2) apparently my BFF would like to fly instead of take the 16 hour drive with us. I don't blame her. However, she is talking about flying in on Sunday (our day to visit with my aunt/cousins). Which means I would need to take time away from seeing my family (which I haven't seen in 2 years), to drive to the airport and pick her up. The more I think about that, the more it bothers me. I'm trying to decide on how to ask her to fly in on Monday and take the shuttle to the hotel, and meet us in the parks. If she flys in early enough, she would still have a full day in Disneyland with us. Plus my family's place isn't really all that close to any airport. (Approx 2hrs one way).

So onto my next step in planning; -and I need HELP

Sunday night we will be staying at my aunts house. She lives approx 2 hours from Disneyland. I'd like to make it in time for EMH. BUUUUUUT I have so many questions as to approaching this. First, we would need to wake up EARRRRRLY. (Haha kids). To make the drive. Then, would it be acceptable to try and check in At PPH At this time? Where would we park, at the hotel, or? What would any of you do? I'm really stumped on how to organize this one.

Just to add my 2 cents- I would suggest your bff take either a shuttle ( I believe it's something like $17 each way) or uber or a taxi- picking her up and navigating the airport and missing visiting time is silly and would annoy me too.

As far as PPH- it may be good to ask on that superthread- I'm not sure of the makeup of the rooms at that hotel (we have only stayed at GCH). I have also heard you can call Disney Travel for requests since that's who you go through for Costco.

 

[JenEMT]

You can register, your room more than likely won't be done but you can definitely register and leave your luggage with the bell desk.

We checked in to the GCH last year at about 6 am so we could get our EE that day (we like to get there about 30 mins before EE so we aren't too far back in line). We didn't need to leave our luggage (left it in the car), but it was no issue checking in early and we got a text later with our room number when it was ready. Congrats on the beautiful wedding!

Thanks guys. I was thinking this was how it would be. We will likely do it this way! I'm thinking EMH will be at 0800 on the 7th, so if we leave my aunts house at 0500-0530 we could be checking in/registering around 730. We will likely also leave our things in the car.
Thanks for the congrats! I see you also have a holiday trip coming up!

 

[millie0312]

Thanks guys. I was thinking this was how it would be. We will likely do it this way! I'm thinking EMH will be at 0800 on the 7th, so if we leave my aunts house at 0500-0530 we could be checking in/registering around 730. We will likely also leave our things in the car.
Thanks for the congrats! I see you also have a holiday trip coming up!

Yes!! We will be there Dec 8-16!! We are staying at the GCH and making use of the EE too. We will wave at you guys through the yawns as we "walk with a purpose" for TSMM and PP haha We have a 1 and 8 year old so I feel your waking up early pain lol

 

[JenEMT]

Yes!! We will be there Dec 8-16!! We are staying at the GCH and making use of the EE too. We will wave at you guys through the yawns as we "walk with a purpose" for TSMM and PP haha We have a 1 and 8 year old so I feel your waking up early pain lol

I'm hoping to utilize EE at each park every morning. I'd like to have a plan, but also be flexible and go with the flow if needed too lol. You going to do a PTR or a TR? I love reading everyone's stories.

 

[JenEMT]

Wrapping things up from my previous posts so I can move on to more planning haha.

I think Im also going to update post #1 with finalized decisions and plans, so I can reference back to it easily when needed.

1-ask BFF if she can fly in on Monday and take shuttle/uber/taxi to parks.
2-decided on waking up early and making the drive to be at the parks for EMH on Monday the 7th. We will register/check in upon arrival and then head to the parks. Going by last years schedule, I'm thinking EMH will begin at 0800 @ DCA. So thinking we need to leave my aunts at 0500... Ouch lol.

 

[JenEMT]

I wanted to take a moment and write down all of the places we want to eat. I'm on a diet right now (15 lbs down woohoo), so I've been dreaming of food lately.

I'd like to -for the most part- be able to play it by ear on where/when we eat. except for the TS places such as BB, where we will make reservations for. For example, if we are near critter country and hungry, we stop in at Hungry Bear. Then I'll cross it off my list.

On this list are:
Big Thunder Ranch
Harbor Gallery- BBQ chicken stuffed baked potato
Plaza Inn- (dinner)fried chicken.
Blue Bayou - Fantasmic! Dinner
River Belle Terrace (bfast)
Hungry Bear
Possibly Rainforest Cafe (maybe Saturday after checking out of PPH)
Flo's V8 cafe - banana French toast (bfast)
Bengal BBQ - bacon wrapped asparagus skewer
Carnation Cafe - fried pickles and potato soup

Other foods to try
Reds apple freeze
Dole whip